The Hartford Hawks men's lacrosse team represents the

University of Hartford The University of Hartford (UHart) is a private university in West Hartford, Connecticut, United States. Its main campus extends into neighboring Hartford and Bloomfield. It enrolled approximately 6,000 undergraduate and graduate students as ...

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...

(NCAA)

Division III In sport, the Third Division, also called Division 3, Division Three, or Division III, is often the third-highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Association football *Belgian Third ...

men's

lacrosse Lacrosse is a contact team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game w ...

. Hartford currently competes in the

Conference of New England The Conference of New England (CNE), formerly known as the Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC), is an intercollegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division III. Member institutions are located in New England in the states of ...

(CNE) and plays its home games at Al-Marzook Field at Alumni Stadium in

West Hartford, Connecticut West Hartford is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States, west of downtown Hartford, Connecticut, Hartford. The town is part of the Capitol Planning Region, Connecticut, Capitol Planning Region. The population was 64,083 at the 20 ...

. Hartford had been an

NCAA Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest division of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athlet ...

member before starting a transition to Division III after the 2022 season. It had been a member of the

America East Conference The America East Conference (AmEast) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference affiliated with NCAA Division I whose members are located in the Northeastern United States. The conference is headquartered in Boston, Massachu ...

, and before that the

Northeast Conference The Northeast Conference (NEC) is a collegiate athletic conference whose schools are members of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Teams in the NEC compete in Division I for all sports; football competes in the Division I Foo ...

. The Hawks played the first season of their transition in spring 2023 as a Division I independent before joining CNE (then known as the Commonwealth Coast Conference) in July 2023.

History

1973–1992

Hartford men's lacrosse was established as a club sport in 1973 until it became a varsity program in 1979. In 1985, Hartford hired John Herbert as head coach for the team's inaugural season in Division 1. Hartford competed as an independent until joining the Northeast Conference in 1993. As an independent team, Hartford had an overall record of 36–58.

1993–2003

In 1993, first-year head coach Jack McGetrick replaced Rob Quinn and led the team to its first winning season in eight years. In 1997, the Hartford Hawks joined the America East Conference. In 2000, the Hawks completed a 14–2 record and earned the NEC regular season title after completing a 4–1 conference record. In 2003, McGetrick once again led the Hawks to a regular season title after finishing the season with a 9–8 record and a 4–1 conference record. After 11 seasons with the Hawks, McGetrick stepped down from his head coaching duties finishing as the winningest lacrosse coach in the programs history. BlackJack returned in 2004 to coach his alumni to victory one last time over the current squad. A feat never accomplished and most likely never repeated. The game was played on the muddy practice field behind the 5’s so the lacrosse team didn’t ruin the field used by the university’s crown jewel soccer team.

2004–2005

Andy Towers replaced McGetrick as head coach for the 2004 season and led the Hawks to an unsuccessful 0–14 record. The following season, now under the helm of Bill Warder, ended in a disappointing 2–12 record.

2006–2016

In 2006, Peter Lawrence became head coach of the Hawks. In 2011, coming off seven straight losing seasons; the Hawks, led by Lawrence, would win their first conference tournament. Hartford also made their first NCAA tournament appearance in

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

but lost in the first round to the second-seeded

Cornell Cornell University is a private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson White in 1865. Since ...

, 12–5. In 2016, the Hawks lost 14–9 against

Quinnipiac The Quinnipiac were a historical Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. They lived in present-day New Haven County, Connecticut, along the Quinnipiac River. Their primary village, also called Quinnipiac, was where New Haven, Connect ...

in a play-in game in the

2016 NCAA tournament The 2016 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament involved 68 teams playing in a single-elimination tournament to determine the men's National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I college basketball national champion for the 20 ...

. Following the 2016 season, Peter Lawrence resigned as head coach of Hartford after 11 seasons.

2017–present

After the departure of long time head coach Peter Lawrence; Hartford promoted assistant coach Ryan Martin to head coach. In his first season as head coach, Martin led the Hawks to a 6–8 overall record.

Division III

On May 6, 2021, the University of Hartford Board of Regents voted to drop its athletic department to

. The drop was set to take place no later than September 1, 2025. The school ultimately started its transition in July 2022 and started Division III competition in July 2023, with full D-III membership to follow in the 2026–27 school year.

Annual record

{, class="wikitable" , - align="center" , -style="background: #ffffdd;" , colspan="8" align="center" , Division I , -style="background: #ffffdd;" , colspan="8" align="center" , Division III †NCAA canceled 2020 collegiate activities due to the COVID-19 virus.

References

External links

* {{Conference of New England men's lacrosse navbox