Lacrosse in Pennsylvania

The first lacrosse team in North America was the Montreal Lacrosse Club, established in Montreal, by dentist, William George Beers. In 1834, a demonstration of lacrosse was given by the Caughnawaga Indians in Montreal, which resulted in growing interest by Canadian settlers. By the 1850s, Beers codified the game by adding rules and structure. Beers also petitioned for lacrosse to be named Canada's national sport, which led to the formation of the National Lacrosse Association. Montreal Lacrosse Club created the first set of written rules of the game of lacrosse. In 1860, Beers wrote up the codes, rules of the game, reducing the length of games and limiting the number of players to 12 per side. In 1867, the first game played under these new rules was played at Upper Canada College in Toronto, where Upper Canada lost to the Toronto Cricket Club 3–1.^[1][2][3]

Intercollegiate lacrosse in the United States can trace its roots to 1877, when New York University beat Manhattan College two to zero. Also in 1877, the Boston Lacrosse Club started at Harvard University, and the Harvard lacrosse team was established three years later, in 1880.

In 1879, the United States Amateur Lacrosse Association was formed by John R. Flannery, a Canadian club player, to coordinate the efforts of private, amateur lacrosse clubs in several cities in the Northeastern United States, including a club that formed in Bradford, Pennsylvania. Flannery grew up in Canada, where he was a member of the Montreal Shamrocks Lacrosse Club, and subsequently moved to the United States where he played for a number of amateur east coast clubs.^[4] In 1878, he organized a game billed as the National Championship between Union Lacrosse Club and Ravenswood Lacrosse Club of New York City. Encouraged by the turnout of some 40,000 spectators, Flannery set about organizing the disparate lacrosse clubs into a cohesive organization.^[5] Ravenswood Lacrosse Club with John Flannery went on to influence lacrosse at several other colleges, playing a well-publicized game against New York University in 1879.^[6]

In 1881, the first true varsity level intercollegiate lacrosse tournament was held, with Harvard defeating Princeton University in the final, 3–0. This series led to the formation of a league in 1882, known as the Inter-Collegiate Lacrosse Association (the ICLA, later the ILA), which included New York University, Columbia University, Princeton, and Harvard. At the same time, Flannery's United States Amateur Lacrosse Association comprised eleven college and club teams, but by 1886 the number of clubs had risen to greater than 40. College organizations, including a varsity team at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, soon sought admittance to the ILA. Lehigh fielded its first varsity squad in 1885, with the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and Lafayette College in Easton, at the club level, following suit in 1890. Lehigh and Swarthmore were accepted as members in the ILA in 1888 and 1891, respectively.

The first tournament for lacrosse supremacy during this period was known as the Oelrichs Cup, sponsored by Hermann Oelrichs, and first offered up in a tournament format in 1881. Oelrichs was the first president of the United States National Amateur Lacrosse Association, a precursor to the USILA, and he was a member of the New York Lacrosse Club. The Oelrichs Cup was played for much of the 1880s, played mostly by amateur non-scholastic clubs though Princeton did field a tournament team. Arnold K. Reese as part of a powerful Baltimore lacrosse club, won the Oelrichs Cup in 1890. At the same time, Reese had been the main force behind starting up varsity lacrosse at Lehigh University. Reese's efforts led to Lehigh being one of the early college lacrosse powers. Reese played for Lehigh from 1888 to 1891, winning an ILA title in 1890.^[7][8][9]

In 1898, another league, the Inter-University Lacrosse League (IULL) was formed playing with slightly different rules, with Harvard, Columbia and Cornell as charter members. Many of the member teams of both the ILA and IULL joined, dropped out or rejoined at various times over the years. In December 1905, representatives from all the colleges in the two leagues met in New York and formed the United States Inter-Collegiate Lacrosse League, the USICLL initially, soon to be known as the USILL. The colleges entering into this association were Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Lehigh, Pennsylvania, Stevens, and Swarthmore.^[10] The USILL acted as the governing body for lacrosse in the United States until it was replaced by the USILA in 1926.

During the first 40 years of organized varsity college lacrosse, known alternately as the ICLA, ILA, USICLL, USILL and USILA, two Pennsylvania schools, Lehigh and Swarthmore, fielded dominant teams. The two teams were voted National Champions of college lacrosse a combined fourteen (14) seasons. Glenn "Pop" Warner, the Hall of Fame football coach at the Carlisle Indian School (PA) from 1899 to 1903, substituted lacrosse for baseball during the spring season because he said, "Lacrosse is a developer of health and strength. It is a game that spectators rave over once they understand it." It is also likely that lacrosse, a contact sport, helped prepare his football players for the fall season.^[11] By 1920, the USILL had expanded to include teams from Syracuse, Rutgers, Penn State and, encouraged by Pop Warner, even considered adding a varsity team at the University of Pittsburgh.

In 1920, college lacrosse realigned their association, adding a Southern Division, which included powerful teams from Lehigh, Penn, and Swarthmore along with traditional power Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (USILA), the organization still in existence today, officially was formed in November 1925.

As of 1942, the association had only 23 member colleges at that time. The members of the U.S. Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association for the 1942 season were: City College of New York, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Drexel Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Hobart College, Johns Hopkins University, Lafayette College, Loyola College, University of Maryland, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Penn State College, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, Rutgers University, Stevens Institute of Technology, Swarthmore College, Syracuse University, Union College, United States Military Academy, United States Naval Academy and Yale University.^[12][13]

Lehigh fielded its first varsity squad in 1885, with the University of Pennsylvania and Lafayette College at the club level following suit in 1890. Penn played intermittently upon starting up lacrosse and so lists 1900 as their first official season of varsity lacrosse. Penn State played its first intercollegiate game against Penn in 1913.^[14] In 1917, Lehigh which had gone undefeated for two straight seasons and had won the Southern division that season, won the USILL championship by defeating Penn in overtime 5 to 4 at Franklin Field in a title matchup. Lehigh had beaten Cornell, the Northern division champions, the prior season to capture a share of the USILL national lacrosse title.^[15]

Swarthmore won four national titles in the early years of lacrosse. Baltimore Hall of Famer, Philip E. Lamb, led Swarthmore to consecutive titles in 1904 and 1905, "in the days when Swarthmore and Johns Hopkins were the perennial national champs", according to Lamb's Hall of Fame entry.^[16] Also, in 1940 Penn State attempted a college box lacrosse league playing top universities including Yale.^[17] An appropriately named College Division dominated lacrosse in the early 1950s, consisting of some 20 undergraduate schools from Rensselaer Polytechnic, Army, Virginia, Navy, Hofstra, Yale, Baltimore University, Maryland, Delaware, Drexel, Princeton, Duke, Washington College, Washington and Lee, Johns Hopkins, Loyola, and Western Maryland as well as two club teams from Mount Washington and Maryland Lacrosse Club. Drexel represented Pennsylvania schools well in 1952 reaching as high as number six in the standings. In the latter part of the 1950s with some 60 colleges playing lacrosse, schools were divided into three divisions. While the 'A Division' included traditional national powers Navy and Johns Hopkins, the 'B Division' and 'C Division' consisted of several potent Pennsylvania universities including Penn, Swarthmore, Penn State, Lehigh, Dickinson, Drexel, and Lafayette.

1954 College Division -- Final National Rankings (National Champions in Blue bold) (Pennsylvania schools in italics) ^[a]

Lehigh University has won eleven national titles under various pre-NCAA United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association formats for national championships, while Swarthmore University has won five titles.

More recently under the NCAA tournament format in place since 1971, Pennsylvania based universities have participated in many NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship tournaments including Bucknell (2), Cabrini (16), Drexel (1), Franklin & Marshall (5), Gettysburg (25), Lehigh (2), Kutztown (1), Messiah College (2), Penn (12), Penn State (4), Swarthmore (1), Widener (6) and Villanova (2).

In the 1988 NCAA tournament, Penn led by Tony Seaman and Chris Flynn were the first Pennsylvania school to reach the semi-finals, losing by one goal to the Gait Brothers led Syracuse Orange, which is as far as any Pennsylvania based Division I school has advanced in tournament play. In all, Penn reached the NCAAs six times in the 1980s, including a quarterfinal appearance in 1987.

For the first time in 2011, a Pennsylvania university or college won the NCAA Division II National Title when Mercyhurst defeated Adelphi 9 to 8. Mercyhurst also played in the 2007 Division II national finals, losing a close contest to LeMoyne 6 to 5. Mercyhurst has been to three Division II finals.

Among recent highlights at the university level, the Penn State Nittany Lions men's team in 2019 was 16 and 2, was seeded number one in the 2019 NCAA tournament, becoming the first ever Pennsylvania team to get the number one NCAA seeding in Men's lacrosse and the second Pennsylvania team to make men's lacrosse Division I Final Four. Also in 2019. Grant Ament set the Division I single season record for assists in a season with 95 assists. In 2005, Penn State was named to the NCAA tournament after reaching number eleven in the national rankings. In 2006 Penn upset #3 Cornell on their way to getting an at-large berth in the NCAA tournament.

Gettysburg has had success in Division III, regularly appearing in the top five national rankings and reaching the NCAA title games in 2001, 2002 and 2009. Philadelphia has hosted six NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship tournament in Divisions I, II & III at Franklin Field and Lincoln Financial Field. In 2009, Villanova defeated Towson in the conference finals to gain the team's first ever NCAA tournament bid. In 2009 Chris Bates head coach for ten years at Drexel took the top job at Princeton.

In 2007, Drexel upset number one ranked and defending National Champion Virginia, 11 to 10, scoring the game-winning goal with three seconds remaining. In 2010, Lafayette won their first six games including consecutive upsets over Navy and Bucknell reaching a national ranking of number eight.

In 2011, for the first time, three Pennsylvania schools were represented in the 16 team NCAA tournament. Penn and Villanova were selected as at-large tournament picks. Bucknell made the tournament by virtue of an automatic qualifier, winning the Patriot league tournament, they took eventual champion Virginia to overtime before losing their first-round game. In 2012 Lehigh was seeded number seven in the NCAA tournament, the first seeded Pennsylvania team since Penn was seeded number four in 1988, they took Maryland to late in their first-round game losing on a Terp goal with just six seconds left. Lehigh also won the Patriot League title in 2013, earning an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, where they lost to UNC. In 2014, Drexel played in their first NCAA tournament and also become the first Pennsylvania Division I school to win an NCAA tournament game since Penn reached the Final Four in 1988. Penn State has received NCAA tournament seedings, in 2017 they were the number seven seed and in 2013 Penn State received the number eight seed in the tournament.

NCAA or USILA National Titles - 19

• Lehigh - 1890, 1893, 1895, 1896, 1897, 1914, 1916, 1917, 1920, 1921 USILA Champions, 1959 USILA Class C Division III National Co-Champion - (11)
• Swarthmore - 1901, 1904, 1905, 1910 USILA Champions, 1953 USILA Division II National Champion - (5)
• Dickinson - 1958 USILA Class C Division III National Co-Champion - (1)
• Mercyhurst - 2011 NCAA Division II Champions - (1)
• Cabrini - 2019 NCAA Division III Champions - (1)

Women's lacrosse began at St Leonards School in Scotland in the 1890s, and was introduced to the United States in 1926 at Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore. The United States Women's Lacrosse Association was established in 1931. Penn State started up a women's program in 1965 and Lock Haven University in 1969. And in 1971 the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women was founded to govern collegiate women's athletics in the United States and to administer national championships.

The most successful programs have been Temple University and Penn State in both the AIAW and NCAA Division I, West Chester University in Division II, as well as Ursinus College and Franklin & Marshall in Division III. Pennsylvania colleges and universities have won a combined 17 USWLA, AIAW and NCAA women's lacrosse national titles.

Temple won championships in 1984 and 1988; Penn State in 1978, 1979, 1980, 1987 and 1989; West Chester in 2002 and 2008; Ursinus in 1986, 1989 and 1990; and Franklin & Marshall in 2007 and 2009. The Penn State Nittany Lions (women) in 1978, 1979 and 1980 went 45-1-3, won the first 3 national collegiate (USWLA) championships in the sport of women's lacrosse, defeating Maryland, Massachusetts and Maryland, respectively, under head coach Gillian Rattray.^[19]

Marsha Florio of Penn State and Gail Cummings of Temple are currently the 3rd and 4th all-time highest scoring Division I players with 380 and 378 career points, respectively. Stephanie Kienle and Katelyn Martin both of West Chester are the 1st and 2nd highest all-time scoring Division II players with 390 and 376 career points, respectively.

In 2009 Franklin & Marshall won the Division III national title defeating Salisbury 11 to 10. In 2011 Gettysburg won the Division III national title defeating Bowdoin 16 to 5.^[20] Gettysburg won the title again in 2017.

NCAA, USWLA or AIAW Titles - 19

• Penn State - 1978, 1979, 1980 USWLA Champions, 1987, 1989 NCAA Division I Champions (5)
• Temple - 1982 AIAW Division I Champions, 1984, 1988 NCAA Division I Champions (3)
• Ursinus – 1986, 1989, 1990 NCAA Division III Champions (3)
• Gettysburg – 2011, 2017, 2018 NCAA Division III Champions (3)
• West Chester – 2002, 2008 NCAA Division II Champions (2)
• Franklin & Marshall – 2007, 2009 NCAA Division III Champions (2)
• Millersville State – 1982 AIAW Division III Champions (1)

The teams noted below are for universities based in Pennsylvania, who have performed notably in NCAA men's or women's lacrosse.

College Team	Year	Record	Comments
Bucknell Bison	1996	12-0	Only undefeated Bucknell lacrosse team, won the Patriot league title in 1996 with wins over Penn, Army and Navy. Controversially, was not selected for the 1996 NCAA Tournament.
Bucknell Bison	2011	14-3	No. 7 ranked team in 2011, won the Patriot league title. Led Virginia in 1st round of 2011 NCAA Tournament 10–6, losing game to eventual National Champion 13–12 in overtime.
Cabrini Cavaliers	2019	22-2	Won the 2019 NCAA Division III tournament, defeating Amherst 16–12 with the finals played in Philadelphia at Lincoln Financial Field. First PA men's team to win a Division III lacrosse title.
Drexel Dragons	2014	13-5	First Drexel lacrosse team to make an NCAA Tournament, defeated #4 seed Penn 16 to 11 in the 1st Round at Franklin Field, advancing to their only quarterfinals appearance.
Gettysburg Bullets	2009	16-4	2009 Division III National Finalist. Lost finals to Cortland State 9–7. Bullets made Division III finals three times during the 2000s.
Lehigh Mountain Hawks	2012	14-3	Won school's 1st Patriot league title in lacrosse. No. 7 seed in 2012 NCAAs. Ranked 4th in nation. Lost to National Title runner-up Maryland in 1st round 10–9 with 7 seconds remaining in game.
Mercyhurst Lakers	2011	14-2	Won the 2011 NCAA Division II tournament. 1st PA men's team to win Division II lacrosse title. Also 1st PA men's team to win a national lacrosse title of any kind since 1959.
Penn Quakers (men)	1988	11-4	1st PA based Division I team to reach NCAA Final Four. Led by coach Tony Seaman, Chris Flynn was named NCAA 1st team. In 1988 NCAA tournament, lost to Gary Gait led Syracuse team 11–10 in national semifinals, with Gait making the famous "Air Gait" jump shot from behind Penn's goal.
Penn Quakers (women)	2008	17-2	2008 Women's NCAA Division I tournament finalist, losing to Northwestern 10–6. Won Ivy league title, defeated number one Northwestern during the regular season.
Penn State Nittany Lions (women)	1978, 1979, 1980	45-1-3	Won 3 national collegiate (USWLA) championships in 1978, 1979 and 1980, defeating Maryland, Massachusetts and Maryland, with a 3-year total record of 45-1-3 under head coach Gillian Rattray.
Penn State Nittany Lions (women)	1987	17-2	Won the 1987 Women's NCAA Division I tournament with a record of 17–2, defeated Temple in title game 7–6, led by leading scorer Amanda Veal.
Penn State Nittany Lions (women)	1989	19-1	Won the 1989 Women's NCAA Division I tournament with a record of 19–1, defeated Harvard in title game 7–6, led by 1990 NCAA Player of the Year Diane Whipple.
Penn State Nittany Lions (men)	2019	16-2	Seeded No. 1 in the 2019 NCAA tournament, first ever Pennsylvania team to get the number one NCAA seeding in Men's lacrosse, second Pennsylvania based college to make men's lacrosse Division I Final Four.
Penn State Nittany Lions (men)	2023	11-5	Number 5 seed in the 2023 NCAA tournament, second Penn State team to make NCAA Final Four, lost semi-finals to Duke one minute into 1st overtime on a controversial in the crease play which ultimately resulted in NCAA rules changes.
Swarthmore Garnet	1953	9-1	One of the top teams during pre-NCAA season 1953. Led by National Lacrosse Hall of Famer Avery Blake Jr., one of the top all-time assist men Orville Wright and National Lacrosse Hall of Fame coach Avery Blake Sr., Swarthmore's lone loss that season was a 14–13 defeat to Johns Hopkins.
Temple Owls	1988	19-0	Won the 1988 Women's NCAA Division I tournament going undefeated, defeating Penn State 15–7, led by National Lacrosse Hall of Famer Amanda O'Leary. O'Leary also won NCAA Player of the Year.

  = Won NCAA/USWLA Title

  = National Title Finalist

Notable College teams from Pennsylvania - Sources^[63]

• History of lacrosse
• List of the oldest lacrosse teams
• Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association
• United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association Champions