Robert Morris is in the midst of its 14th men’s lacrosse season, and the Colonials, based near Pittsburgh, appear ready to make a serious run at their first appearance in the NCAA tournament.

After winning six of its first eight games, including takedowns of Penn State and Marquette that knocked each school out of the top 20 — the Colonials suffocated Marquette 12-2 on March 10 — Robert Morris opens its all-important Northeast Conference schedule Friday night against visiting Bryant.

The Bulldogs have dominated the league and Robert Morris for years.

The Colonials bring a five-game winning streak into the Bryant game under seventh-year head coach Andrew McMinn, who served as an assistant for six seasons at RMU before getting promoted.

“We’re doing a great job of taking things in stride,” McMinn said. “We’re not thinking about rankings or any of the other things that fans worry about. We’re worried more about the opinions in our locker room.

“We’ve got a positive buzz going, which is something this team was feeling before the season started. We tried to give them an off day and just watch film [this week], but they wouldn’t take it.”

McMinn, who was voted NEC Coach of the Year last season after Robert Morris finished 9-7 before losing for the second time to Bryant in the league tournament semifinals, has his best team going strong.

The Colonials, who have lost to Rutgers and Georgetown — the Hoyas escaped with a 12-11 win — are ranked 10th in scoring offense (12.5 goals per game) and seventh in scoring defense (8.13 GAA). Robert Morris ranks fourth in extra-man offense efficiency (58.3 percent) and is third in man-down defense efficiency (84.0 percent).

Redshirt junior attackman Matt Schmidt leads the team with 20 goals and is tied nationally with seven extra-man scores. Junior attackman Jimmy Perkins leads the NEC with 2.25 assists per game. Senior defenseman Zachary Bryant is sixth in the NCAA with 2.25 caused turnovers per game.

But the player who steadies Robert Morris’ commitment to an up-tempo pace that approaches breakneck is junior goalie Alex Heger, the reigning all-conference first teamer. Heger ranks fourth in the NCAA in save percentage (61.0) and seventh in goals-allowed average (7.83) and is coming off a 19-save performance in a 15-5 rout over Mount St. Mary’s. The Mount went scoreless for 27 minutes.

“[Heger] is as consistent as any goalie you’ll find,” said McMinn, a former all-MAAC goalie who graduated from Providence in 2005. “After splitting time with a fifth-year guy as a freshman, he took over last year and has never looked back.

“He is so patient on the ball, so efficient with his movement,” McMinn added. “He has less fear of getting hit by the ball than any goalie I’ve ever been around.”

Robert Morris started its program by losing 27 of its first 28 games, while taking its lumps in the Colonial Athletic Association for several years. The Colonials joined the NEC in 2011.

The way Georgetown coach Kevin Warne sees it, the Colonials have the stuff to make some history this year.

“They play at a frenetic pace and they do it very effectively,” Warne said. “They are a bear.”

Like Much of ACC, Notre Dame Seeking Consistency

At 5-2 and coming off a grinding, 9-8 victory over Ohio State, seventh-ranked Notre Dame is similar to the Atlantic Coast Conference, with its relative youth and up-and-down ways in the early going.

Sunday’s victory over the Buckeyes, which gave 30th-year head coach Kevin Corrigan his 300th career victory and 290th in South Bend, featured a four-goal, fourth quarter that followed a scoreless third. The Fighting Irish erased a 6-5 deficit after three quarters then held off Ohio State late.

So far in 2018, Notre Dame has outscored opponents in the fourth quarter, 27-14. The Irish have lost the third quarter, 20-8. Four days before the Irish defense nailed down Ohio State, Notre Dame gave it up at the defensive end and lost to Michigan, 13-12.

“Each team [in the ACC] is going through their own thing,” said Corrigan, whose team will play at the Carrier Dome on Saturday. The Orange struggled early, but is coming off a 15-14 thriller over Duke.

“We played some really good offense against Michigan and played really good defense against Ohio State,” he added. “We’ve done a lot of different things well at different times. It’s the consistency that we are searching for.”