INDIANAPOLIS - America East will send multiple teams to the NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship for the fourth time as both Hartford and Albany received tournament bids Sunday evening during the NCAA selection show.
The conference champion Hawks will face Quinnipiac in an NCAA play-in game Wednesday while the Great Danes received their first-ever at-large berth and will visit No. 8 seed Syracuse Sunday. Hartford's game time is TBD while Albany and Syracuse face off at 7:30 p.m. Sunday. The game will be televised on ESPNU.
It is the fourth time overall America East has sent two teams to the men's lacrosse tournament. UMBC was the last to accomplish the feat in 2007 while Hofstra received at-large bids in 1999 and 2001.
Hartford (11-6) earned the conference's NCAA automatic bid by becoming the first No. 4 seed to win the America East Championship. The Hawks upset fourth-ranked and top-seeded Albany, 11-10 in overtime, in the semifinals Thursday and then edged Vermont, 17-16, in the highest-scoring title game in league history Saturday to earn their second-ever NCAA tournament berth.
The winner of Wednesday's Hartford-Quinnipiac game will play at top-seeded Maryland Sunday at 12:30 p.m. on ESPNU.
Despite falling to the Hawks, the Great Danes will be making their fourth-straight NCAA appearance and eighth overall after earning one of eight at-large bids. Albany (12-3) will visit in-state rival Syracuse Sunday. The Orange beat the Great Danes, 16-7, earlier this year.
Albany is one of three America East programs to win an NCAA first round game since 2007 and the Great Danes have done so three times. Albany beat Cornell last year and Loyola twice, in 2014 and 2007, and nearly reached the Final Four each time. America East teams have 11 NCAA wins in total.
All Division I first round games will be televised on ESPNU. The quarterfinal games will all be televised on ESPN2 or ESPNU May 21 and 22. The Division I semifinal and championship games, and the Division II and III championship games, will be held at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 28-30 and hosted by Drexel University. The Division I semifinals will be televised live on ESPN2 starting at Noon Eastern time, May 28. The championship game will be televised live on ESPN2 starting at 1 p.m. Eastern time, May 30.