Moon Township, Pa. – The Robert Morris University men's lacrosse team returns to action Sunday, February 21 with another road contest, as the Colonials travel to Colgate. RMU was originally supposed to play Bucknell on Saturday, but the game was postponed and moved to Saturday, April 17. The Colonials currently sit at 0-2 after a 21-15 loss at High Point this past Saturday, while this will be the first game of the 2021 campaign for the Raiders.
 
GAME #3
Robert Morris Colonials (0-2) @ Colgate Raiders (0-0)
February 21, 2021 // 1:00 p.m. // Hamilton, N.Y. – Crown Field at Andy Kerr Stadium (10,221)
Live Video: ESPN+ // Live Stats: GoColgateRaiders.com
 
History w/ Colgate
Overall: 0-2 | Home: 0-1 | Away: 0-1 | Neutral: 0-0 | Streak: L2
Last Game: March 3, 2012 – Moon Township, Pa. – Colgate 24, Robert Morris 14
 
Robert Morris and Colgate haven't played since the 2012 season, with the Raiders owning a 2-0 edge in the all-time series. RMU fell in the most recent at home, 24-12, despite Mike Grosz breaking single-game program records for faceoff wins (28) and groundballs (20). Kiel Matisz posted seven points on six goals and an assist, while Taylor Graves recorded a hat trick for the hosts.
 
The first meeting in the series went to Colgate by a score of 14-12 on March 1, 2011. Patrick Smith led the Colonials with five goals offensively, while Matisz and Trevor Moore netted three points each on a goal and two helpers. The visitors came back from an 11-8 deficit with four fourth-quarter goals over a span of 2:15, but the Raiders responded with a 3-0 run to seal the win.
 
Scouting the Raiders
Led by third-year head coach Matt Karweck, Colgate lost all six of its contests in 2020 with the last two against Boston University and Navy coming by a combined three goals. The Raiders were selected to finish eighth out of nine teams in the Patriot League Preseason Honors, coming in just a point behind Holy Cross.
 
Colgate's top returning point-getter is junior midfielder Brian Minicus, who recorded 19 points on seven goals and 12 assists. Senior captain Mike Hawkins also returns for the Raiders, as he tallied 17 points (12g, 5a) and converted at a 37.5 percent rate of his shot attempts. In goal, junior Sean Collins started all six games last season, posting a .427 save percentage and 18.33 goals against average.
 
Last Time Out
RMU was undone by a pair of seven-goal frames last Saturday at High Point, as the Panthers defeated the Colonials, 21-15. HPU grabbed an early 4-1 lead before goals by Ryan Smith and Jimmy Perkins pulled the visitors within one; however, a 4-0 run that followed gave the Panthers an 8-3 advantage, and they held serve from there.
 
The Colonials received a pair of four-goal efforts from Smith and Perkins, with Smith adding a pair of assists for a six-point day. Jake Boudreau and Elliot Holden each added a pair of tallies as seven different RMU players scored on the day. James Leary netted a team-best five groundballs, while Steven DelleMonache was 13-of-28 at the faceoff spot.
 
Keep It 100
With four goals last Saturday at High Point, graduate attack Ryan Smith became the fifth player in program history to score 100 goals in a RMU uniform. Smith's 18th career hat trick pushed him to fourth in program annals with 101 tallies, and now trails Trevor Moore (134; 2008-11), Luke Laszkiewicz (125; 2013-16), and Corbyn Tao-Brambleby (116; 2008-11) on the leaderboard. The Burlington, Ontario native also slots fourth in points per game (2.69), fifth in assists (55), and sixth in points (156).
 
Milestone Watch
Senior co-captain Corson Kealey enters this weekend's tilt at Colgate just two points shy of reaching the 100-point milestone. He has collected 74 goals and 24 assists over 40 career games, highlighted by a 52-goal, 10-assist sophomore campaign in 2019. Kealey would become the 16th different Colonial to record 100 points in a career, and he ranks fourth all-time at RMU in goals per game (1.85) and eighth in points per game (2.45), and is 13 goals shy of breaking into the top 10 of that category.
 
Seventh-year attack Jimmy Perkins is 16 points shy of reaching 100 points at RMU, and is 14 away from accumulating 150 in his career. Perkins, who played the 2019 and 2020 seasons at Utah, also sits 16 goals away from hitting the century mark across his two stops. He shares the 10th spot for assists at RMU with Luke Laszkiewicz (2013-16) as both have dished out 42 helpers, and ranks fourth in assists per game (1.17) and 10th in points per game (2.33).
 
On The Radar
Despite being 0-2, the Colonials are ninth among the teams receiving votes in the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (USILA) / Dynamic Top 20 with six points. RMU has been in the receiving votes section both in the preseason and Week 1 versions of the rankings.
 
If the Colonials can break into the rankings this season, it would be the first time since the 2018 campaign that they garnered a national ranking. RMU made its presence known in nine consecutive ranking releases that year, reaching as high as No. 13 in the USILA Coaches' Poll and finishing at No. 15 in the Maverik Media/Inside Lacrosse Poll. The Colonials also broke into the Top 20 in both the 2010 and 2012 seasons.
 
Never Grow Up
RMU received a boost to its 2021 roster with the return of graduate student Jimmy Perkins, who was previously on the team's roster from 2015 to 2018. Perkins spent the last two seasons at the University of Utah, using the NCAA waiver extending a year of eligibility to spring sport student-athletes to return to Moon Township to pursue a second Master's degree.
 
A product of Quaker Valley High School, Perkins is one of two seventh-year players to suit up in the 2021 NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse season, joining Adam Charalambides of Rutgers. He missed his first two seasons at RMU due to injury, then accumulated 79 points (38g, 41a) and 45 groundballs in 34 games over the 2017 and 2018 campaigns. In two years at Utah, Perkins tallied 52 points (42g, 10a) over 18 contests, netting a team-high 18 goals in the abbreviated 2020 season.
 
Perkins ranks fourth all-time at RMU in assists per game (1.17) and owns the single-game record for helpers with six on Feb. 9, 2018. He was an All-Northeast Conference (NEC) Second Team pick in 2018, recording 30 assists and 61 points that season - numbers that rank second and fifth, respectively, in the program's season rankings. Between his time with the Colonials and Utes, Perkins has registered 84 goals, 52 assists, 136 points, and 74 groundballs in 54 career games.
 
Road Warriors
There's no truth to the rumor that RMU will be changing its acronym to RWU, but Road Warrior University would be an accurate way to describe the Colonials' program in recent seasons. As an independent in 2021, RMU is slated to play eight true road contests and nine of its 11 games away from Joe Walton Stadium.
 
This isn't a new concept to the Colonials. In last year's abbreviated campaign, RMU played five of its six contests away from Moon Township with four of them being true road games. In their 2018 and 2019 NCAA Tournament seasons, the Colonials played a combined 21 road games - plus two neutral-site bouts - compared to just 12 home contests.
 
Fly High Jack
In January, RMU announced that it will retire the jersey number 43 in honor of the late Jack Toomb. The Colonials also will wear helmet straps with 'Toomb 43' on them to honor their former teammate.
 
Toomb passed away in March 2020 at the age of 23. He played at RMU from 2016 to 2019, and was a cornerstone of the program's 2018 and 2019 NEC Tournament championship sides as a long-stick midfielder and defender. A three-time All-NEC Second Team selection, Toomb ranks third in program history in games played (65), fourth in groundballs (210), and fifth in groundballs per game (3.23) and caused turnovers (64).
 
Last July, Tyson Gibson wore Toomb's name and number during the Major League Lacrosse (MLL) season with the Philadelphia Barrage. RMU plans on holding a formal jersey retirement ceremony sometime in 2021.
 
From Bobby Mo to Pro
RMU has made its name known in the professional ranks of indoor and outdoor lacrosse, and accomplished an impressive feat last year. In the 2020 season, the Colonials had the highest representation of any college or university in the National Lacrosse League (NLL) with 11 former players suiting up for 10 different teams.
 
After the selections of Ryan Smith and Brad McCulley in the 2020 NLL Entry Draft, RMU became the only school to boast multiple first-round picks in the 2019 and 2020 drafts. The Colonials have 12 players active in the NLL as of the 2021 season with Kevin Brownell (Buffalo Bandits), Kyle Buchanan (Buffalo Bandits), Tyler Digby (Colorado Mammoth), Tyson Gibson (New York Riptide), JonPatrik Kealey (Buffalo Bandits), Luc Magnan (Halifax Thunderbirds), Kiel Matisz (Philadelphia Wings), Brad McCulley (Buffalo Bandits), James Rahe (Vancouver Warriors), Justin Robinson (Saskatchewan Rush), Jacob Ruest (New England Black Wolves), and Mitch Wilde (Calgary Roughnecks).
 
Next Up
RMU's scheduled home opener with Bellarmine for Tuesday, Feb. 23 was postponed following the Knights pausing team activities for two weeks. Instead the Colonials' next scheduled contest will be a clash with Notre Dame on Saturday, Feb. 27 at 4:00 p.m. on the ACC Network. RMU and the Fighting Irish played once prior to this upcoming matchup, a 15-5 defeat from Arlotta Stadium on April 12, 2014.
 
Follow The Colonials: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube

Tweet #RMUnite