Throughout his 10 years at the helm and his 15 years overall at Robert Morris, Andrew McMinn has become better accustomed to the intricacies of lengthy road trips than most. Given the university’s location in the western suburbs of Pittsburgh in Moon Township, bolstering the Colonials’ strength of schedule has often required playing anyone, anywhere.
Usually, though, that means away from Joe Walton Stadium.
“Even driving across Pennsylvania to Philly is five hours,” McMinn said. “So, we’re typically four at a minimum and sometimes then some.”
The “road warrior” mentality for the program whose unique transition game and bevy of future NLL stars who often cause opponents fits has never been more important than this year. After Robert Morris (3-3) left the Northeast Conference last summer, McMinn was tasked with building a schedule as an independent. He cobbled together 12 games with the potential to add more. Only two are true home games.
“Our approach from the beginning was, let’s schedule as many games as we possibly can,” McMinn said. “Our administration has been extremely supportive. We want to give the guys the opportunity to get as much of a season as we can in place.”
The latest of those games last Saturday at Air Force was a preview of a future ASUN Conference matchup, which Air Force, Bellarmine, Cleveland State, Detroit Mercy, Robert Morris and Utah will comprise starting July 1. During film review the past two days, McMinn and his staff have relied on their notes more than actual clips, due to the blizzard-like conditions in Colorado Springs that made it too difficult at times to distinguish who was who.
The game was initially supposed to take place inside the Academy’s Holaday Center, but the location shifted several times.
The Colonials built a 11-5 lead at halftime after an eight-goal second quarter, then they hung on to win 14-13. Seventh-year graduate student attackman Jimmy Perkins, who started his career at RMU and played the last two years at Utah, led the way with six points (four goals).
His diving, wrap around goal was the highlight of the contest.
The conditions that made Perkins’ goal, which McMinn called “Gait-esque,” all the more entertaining also put Robert Morris’ travel plans in doubt. By the time the team got to practice at Air Force on Friday, McMinn learned their flight scheduled for Saturday was canceled. Then the Denver Airport shut down.
McMinn called the team’s bus driver a “godsend” who drove them from Colorado Springs to the Comfort Suites Denver Airport and the administrator who booked the new hotel for the team. Since the 30-plus inches of snow in the city made many roads impassable, the team relied on food from the Mobil Gas Station and the Krispy Krunchy fried chicken stand next door Saturday night and all of Sunday. Check-in was at noon on Monday.
They arrived at the airport at 1:30 p.m., even though the runways were still closed at that time and their flight wasn’t scheduled to leave until 6:50 p.m. After yet another delay, they departed from Denver around 8:40 p.m. They finally returned to Pittsburg at 3 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday.
“We were really impressed as a staff just with how positive the guys stayed,” McMinn said. “It was a tribute to their resiliency.”