The Midwest Lacrosse Conference (MLC) is a men's

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges ...

(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 Thir ...

lacrosse-only college

athletic conference An athletic conference is a collection of sports teams, playing competitively against each other in a sports league. In many cases conferences are subdivided into smaller divisions, with the best teams competing at successively higher levels. Conf ...

composed of schools located in the

Midwestern United States The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...

. All schools are members of conferences that do not sponsor lacrosse.

History

Founding members Adrian College, Albion College, Carthage College, Fontbonne University, Milwaukee School of Engineering, College of Mount St. Joseph and Trine University ratified bylaws on June 2, 2009. The NCAA recognition of the new conference went into effect September 1, 2009 and conference play began on February 13, 2010. Many of the MLC members also field women's lacrosse as part of the Midwest Women's Lacrosse Conference, which began in 2011. Because the

Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association The Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA) is an athletic conference that competes in the NCAA's Division III. There are nine teams in the conference, all located in the states of Michigan and Indiana. The Michigan Intercollegiate A ...

added lacrosse beginning with the 2013 season, their members played their last season in the MLC during 2012. Likewise, the

College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin The College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW) is a college athletic conference which competes in the Division III level of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). CCIW schools have accounted for 50 national championships i ...

added lacrosse beginning with the 2015 season, so their teams played their last season in the MLC during 2014. The three schools in the

Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference The Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference (HCAC) is an intercollegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division III. Member institutions are located in Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio. Founded as the Indiana Collegiate Athletic Confe ...

starting playing in the new lacrosse-only Ohio River Lacrosse Conference in 2015 as well.

Beloit College Beloit College is a private liberal arts college in Beloit, Wisconsin. Founded in 1846, when Wisconsin was still a territory, it is the state's oldest continuously operated college. It is a member of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest and h ...

and

Cornell College Cornell College is a private college in Mount Vernon, Iowa. Originally the Iowa Conference Seminary, the school was founded in 1853 by George Bryant Bowman. Four years later, in 1857, the name was changed to Cornell College, in honor of iron ty ...

joined the MLC in the spring of 2015.

Concordia University Chicago Concordia University Chicago is a private university in River Forest, Illinois. Formerly a college exclusively for parochial teacher education, Concordia-Chicago now offers more than 100 undergraduate and postgraduate degrees and enrolls more t ...

joined in 2016 and

Monmouth College Monmouth College is a private Presbyterian liberal arts college in Monmouth, Illinois. Monmouth enrolls approximately 900 students from 21 countries who choose courses from 40 major programs, 43 minors, and 17 pre-professional programs in a ...

joined in 2017. Marian University continued to expand the conference in 2018. In 2019, the conference added

North Central University North Central University (NCU) is a private Christian university associated with the Assemblies of God and located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is owned and operated by 11 Assemblies of God districts of the upper Midwest. NCU was founded in 1 ...

and University of Northwestern – St. Paul. Both universities are members of the

Upper Midwest Athletic Conference The Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC) is a college-level athletic conference. The UMAC is a conference of NCAA Division III since the 2008–09 season. Prior to that, it was a non scholarship conference affiliated with National Associatio ...

for other sports and had been

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

programs for men's lacrosse. Further change came before the 2020 season when the conference added Illinois Tech and Fontbonne announced that the men's lacrosse program would be suspended indefinitely due to low participation numbers for the program. In 2021, the

Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference The Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC), formerly the Northern Athletics Conference (NAC), is a college athletic conference. It participates in the NCAA's Division III and began its first season in the fall of 2006. The NACC sponsors ...

will bring its lacrosse-sponsoring institutions (Aurora, Benedictine, Concordia Chicago, Concordia Wisconsin, Illinois Tech, Marian, Milwaukee School of Engineering) under the NACC umbrella.

Member schools

Current members

Departing members in red.

Former Members

References

{{Reflist

External links

Official website
College lacrosse leagues in the United States College sports in Illinois College sports in Indiana College sports in Iowa College sports in Michigan College sports in Missouri College sports in Ohio College sports in Wisconsin NCAA Division III conferences Sports leagues established in 2009 2009 establishments in the United States Sports in the Midwestern United States