Men’s lacrosse welcomes three new Division I teams to ALC
10/5/2021 3:47:51 PM | Men's Lacrosse
Liberty University’s men’s lacrosse Head Coach Kyle McQuillan, who founded the eight-team Atlantic Lacrosse Conference (ALC) before the 2020-21 season and serves as its president, announced last week the addition of three additional Division I programs as well as the formation of a new ALC Division II with six schools.
“With the Division II component being constructed and put together, the ALC will be more than doubled in size and scope (for the 2021-22 season),” McQuillan said of the conference which competes within the Men’s Collegiate Lacrosse Association (MCLA). “That’s a pretty big jump in just our first to the second year. We are excited about our growth, and happy that these teams have put their faith in the ALC and they’re all really excited about the upcoming season.”
The University of Pittsburgh and Temple University join the ALC from the MCLA’s Continental Lacrosse Conference (CLC) along with James Madison University, which formerly competed in the National Collegiate Lacrosse Conference, separate from the MCLA.
Division I of the ALC will be separated into North and South divisions, with the Flames contending with Pitt, Temple, West Virginia, George Washington, and JMU in the North and the South including Virginia Tech, Clemson, North Carolina State, East Carolina, and Tennessee.
Like the eight founding ALC DI programs, the six ALC DII teams all come from the SouthEastern Lacrosse Conference (SELC): Appalachian State, Wake Forest, UNC Charlotte, UNC Wilmington, Elon, and Coastal Carolina.
McQuillan has put in a bid to host the April 30-May 1 ALC DI Tournament at Lynchburg’s City Stadium, with the winner earning an automatic bid to the MCLA National Championships, which will return to Round Rock, Texas, from May 9-14.
Liberty will host its annual Alumni game this Friday at 8 p.m. at the Liberty Lacrosse Fields with the 33 active roster players taking on approximately 30 alumni in what has become an increasingly competitive showdown over the years.
“We want to grow the culture and the community and to show appreciation for them with a post-game tailgate,” McQuillan said. “Liberty University has been around for 50 years, which is something that is being celebrated campus-wide. For our guys, our program has been in and around Liberty for large portions of those 50 years. The biggest thing is giving them an opportunity to come back and experience everything Liberty has to offer and to see the continued growth and success of the program and understand the role they played in that.”
Then on Saturday, Oct. 16, the Flames will travel to Farmville, Va., for scrimmages against Queens College (N.C.) and host Hampden-Sydney, NCAA DII and DIII programs, before hosting George Washington on Oct. 23.
“We played Hampden-Sydney in a pre-COVID spring preseason game, which was a great tune-up for our guys, and this will be a great way for us to get an assessment of where we are, competing against a very strong program with a lot of strong individual players,” McQuillan said. “We are looking forward to getting back on the field to test ourselves against a great opponent.”
By Ted Allen/Staff Writer
