Robert Morris men’s lacrosse will join the ASUN conference for the 2021-22 season, the school announced Friday.
The Colonials will compete along with Air Force, Bellarmine, Cleveland State, Detroit Mercy and Utah in the league formerly known as the Atlantic Sun. Because it has six members, the conference will receive an automatic NCAA bid.
The Robert Morris program, founded in 2005, will play as an independent this season after the school left the Northeast Conference in June. The Colonials won NEC titles in 2018 and 2019 and made the NCAA tournament in 2018, defeating Canisius and putting a scare into No. 1 Maryland before falling, 14-11.
“We’re extremely excited to enter another chapter of our program’s history as we transition into the ASUN Conference,” RMU coach Andrew McMinn said in a statement. “The formation of the ASUN will provide an extremely competitive conference with opponents that we are familiar with and have a history of competing against.”
Air Force and Bellarmine currently play in the Southern Conference. Their departure might have caused the league to drop below six members, thus giving up automatic qualifier status. The SoCon, however, announced realignment Friday that will keep six members competing: Hampton, High Point, Jacksonville, Mercer, Richmond and VMI.
Robert Morris is a member of the Horizon League in basketball, soccer, volleyball, women’s cross country and indoor and outdoor track and field, men’s golf and softball. The Colonials play in the Big South in football, Atlantic Hockey in men’s hockey and College Hockey America in women’s hockey.
