National Collegiate Athletic Association

Latest News

« back to 2011 | Back to NCAA News Archive Index

Lindenwood to join Western Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association

Lindenwood University, located in St. Charles, Mo., has accepted an invitation to have its men’s and women’s lacrosse programs join the recently formed Western Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association for the 2011-12 academic year and 2012 season.

The addition of Lindenwood expands the women’s contingent to five institutions, including Colorado-based members Adams State, Fort Lewis, Mesa State and Regis (Colorado).

There will also be five member institutions with men’s programs as Lindenwood will replace Grand Canyon, which announced its plans to move men’s lacrosse to a club sport level earlier this spring. Adams State, Mesa State, Dominican (California) and Notre Dame de Namur are the other member institutions with men’s squads.

The WILA was founded for the 2011 season and just concluded its first season. Notre Dame de Namur and Regis won the organization’s initial championships with 7-1 and 6-0 WILA records, respectively.

As a stipulation to membership, Lindenwood has guaranteed that it will provide a second game against another NCAA Division II opponent to each visiting WILA team when they travel to the suburban St. Louis area. The rest of the scheduling format calls for a home-and-home, double round-robin series among the WILA teams. Those eight games will determine the WILA championship.

Lindenwood has an enrollment of 8,787 students and is in the process toward becoming a full NCAA Division II member. Its lacrosse teams had previously played under the umbrella of the Men’s Collegiate Lacrosse Association and Women’s Collegiate Lacrosse Associations.