SPARTANBURG, S.C. – Regular-season champion Jacksonville has claimed the No. 1 seed in the Southern Conference Men’s Lacrosse Championship, which will be contested at Vert Stadium in High Point, North Carolina. The tournament begins with a pair of semifinals on Thursday, May 5, with the final on Saturday, May 7.
 
The Dolphins (13-2, 5-0 SoCon) will face No. 4 seed VMI (4-10, 2-3), which will be making its first-ever appearance in the SoCon tournament, in Thursday’s first semifinal at 5 p.m. Jacksonville downed VMI 25-6 on April 16 in the squads’ regular-season meeting.
 
Jacksonville, which has won a school-record 13 games and is ranked No. 8 in the USILA/Dynamic Men’s Coaches Division I Poll and Inside Lacrosse poll and No. 6 in the Nike/USA Lacrosse Magazine poll, claimed its first regular-season SoCon title this year, completing an undefeated run through the league. The Dolphins jumped into the national rankings on Feb. 14 after downing then-No. 2 Duke the previous day and have been ranked ever since. JU, which is seeking its first SoCon tournament title, has appeared in each of the last four league tournaments contested, reaching the final in 2018, where it fell in overtime to Richmond.
 
VMI won its first SoCon games ever this season, downing Mercer 13-10 on April 2 and then adding a 21-5 win over Hampton on April 23. The Keydets, whose four overall wins are tied for their most since joining the SoCon in 2015, will be making their first postseason appearance since playing in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament in 2008.
 
Thursday’s second semifinal sees third-seeded High Point (7-7, 2-3) host No. 2 seed Richmond (9-4, 4-1) in a rematch of last season’s title bout at 8 p.m. The defending champion Panthers won that meeting last year, marking the fourth time in six chances that the squads have met in the tournament. Each side has won twice in tournament play, with High Point downing the Spiders for titles in 2015 and 2021 and Richmond defeating the Panthers in the title game in 2019 and in the 2016 semifinals.
 
The 17th-ranked Spiders have suffered just four losses this season, all coming in against nationally ranked programs. Richmond made a brief appearance in the national rankings on Feb. 28 before returning for good on April 4 after topping then-No. 2 and defending national champion Virginia two days prior, 17-13. Richmond, which is the only SoCon team to qualify for the league tournament each year it’s been contested and has reached the title game each year, is led on offense by graduate attackman Ryan Lanchbury, who is the SoCon’s career goals scored leader (159), the 2021 SoCon Offensive Player of the Year and one of 25 national nominees for the Tewaaraton Award this season.
 
Opposite Lanchbury is another Tewaaraton Award nominee in High Point fifth-year Asher Nolting, who owns numerous SoCon career and single-season records and was the 2018 and 2019 SoCon Offensive Player of the Year. Nolting enters postseason play 10th in NCAA Division I history in career points with 341 and paces the league in scoring (78) and assists (47) this season. Six of the Panthers’ seven losses this season have come at the hands of ranked opponents, including a 16-5 setback to then-No. 18 Richmond on April 23.
 
High Point, VMI and Mercer finished tied for third in the league standings at 2-3 in SoCon play, with the Panthers emerging with the No. 3 seed and VMI claiming the No. 4 seed by virtue of league tiebreaking procedures.
 
The title game of the 2022 SoCon Championship will be Saturday at 12 p.m.
 
All three contests will air live on ESPN+, with Jason Patterson handling play-by-play duties and Phil Cox serving as analyst.
 
SoCon Men’s Lacrosse Championship
(Vert Stadium; High Point, N.C.)
May 5 (Thursday)
No. 1 Jacksonville vs. No. 4 VMI, 5 p.m. (ESPN+)
No. 2 Richmond vs. No. 3 High Point, 8 p.m. (ESPN+)
 
(Vert Stadium; High Point, N.C.)
May 7 (Saturday)
Championship game, 12 p.m. (ESPN+)