The Mercyhurst Lakers, representing Mercyhurst University which is located in Erie, Pennsylvania, are composed of 24 teams in intercollegiate athletics, including men's and women's basketball, cross country, golf, ice hockey, lacrosse, rowing, soccer, tennis, and water polo. Men's sports include baseball, football, and wrestling. Women's sports include bowling, field hockey, softball, stunt (an all-female cheerleading discipline that emphasizes acrobatics), and volleyball. The Lakers compete in the NCAADivision II and are members of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) for all sports except ice hockey, which competes in NCAA Division I; bowling, a sport in which the NCAA holds a single all-divisions national championship, which competes in the East Coast Conference; men's lacrosse and stunt, both of which compete in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference; and water polo, a sport in which the NCAA holds single all-divisions national championships for men and women. The men's and women's ice hockey teams are members of Atlantic Hockey America, formed shortly after the 2023–24 season by the merger of the men's former home of the Atlantic Hockey Association and the women's former home of College Hockey America.[2] The men's and women's water polo teams play in the Western Water Polo Association.[3] On April 4, 2024, it was announced that Mercyhurst would be transitioning to NCAA Division I and join the Northeast Conference starting in the 2024-25 academic school year.
The most recently added sport was stunt, added for 2023–24, the same year in which the sport was added to the NCAA Emerging Sports for Women program.[4]