The Aurora University men's lacrosse team will represent the Midwest Lacrosse Conference in the 2017 NCAA Division III Men's Lacrosse Championships. The Spartans received a Pool A berth after winning the MLC tournament championship over Concordia University Wisconsin 14-6.
 
The Spartans will host a NCAA Division III men's lacrosse contest for the first time in the program's young seven year history. AU will welcome Illinois Wesleyan University (15-3) and take on the Titans on Wednesday, May 10. Game time will be announced on Monday, May 8 for the game on Vago Field.

The match-up will be the fourth all-time meeting between the schools (AU is 3-0 all-time) and second in the 2017 season. The teams met on February 18 on AU's Vago Field with the Spartans defeating the Titans 14-10.

The Spartan men's lacrosse program, under the direction of Head Coach Kylor Berkman, will make its fifth NCAA Division III Men's Lacrosse Championships appearance in the program's seventh season. The first four appearances for AU resulted in AU reaching the Sweet 16 after winning the programs and State of Illinois' first NCAA contest in 2013, defeating Ohio Wesleyan University 13-9 before falling to SUNY - Cortland 14-8. In 2014, AU defeated Adrian College 22-13 before falling to Denison University 11-8 and in 2015, AU defeated Otterbein University 8-6 before falling to Lynchburg College 19-8. Last season, the Spartans defeated Albion College 12-11 in overtime before falling at Denison University 12-3.
 
AU will enter the NCAA tournament with an18-2 record, a school record for wins and having won three games in a row and 17 of their last 18 games. The Spartans were the Midwest Lacrosse Conference regular season (shared) and tournament champions with a 7-1 regular season record and 2-0 in the MLC tournament.
 
This season, AU is led by junior Trevor McNamara, senior Jason Koziol, senior Bailey Smith and junior Corey Segall. McNamara has a team-leading 86 points with 43 goals and 43 assists. Koziol has 55 goals and 25 assists while Smith has a team-leading 57 goals with 12 assists. Segall is the Spartans face off specialist, having won 247-of-334 attempts while adding six goals and four assists. As a team, AU has nine double digit goal scorers and has allowed 6.05 goals per game while scoring 15.85 per game.

The winner of the AU vs. Illinois Wesleyan contest will then play the winner of the game between Carthage College at Denison University. There are 34 teams in the NCAA Division III championships with 24 automatic bids and 10 at-large selections. The national championship game will be on May 28 at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass. AU has played five other NCAA bound teams this season with a 4-1 record in those games.