Opening Draw: The Tiger women's lacrosse team begins its Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) title defense as the tournament gets underway on Friday, May 1 at the University of Delaware. The fourth seeded and defending champion Tigers battle No. 1 Hofstra in the first game at 4 p.m. Audio coverage of the game is available on Towson Sports Network with Kevin Copp providing the call.

Updating the Tigers: Towson suffered a tough 11-10 overtime loss to No. 18 Johns Hopkins in the regular season finale last Saturday. Senior attacker Sarah Maloof tied her career-high with four goals in the loss. Redshirt senior attacker Andi Raymond leads the Tigers' attack with 32 goals and 23 assists for 55 points. Sophomore midfielder Samantha Brookhart has contributed 10 goals and 19 assists for 29 points. Junior defender Emily Roth has collected a team-high 34 ground balls while junior midfielder Breanna Hamm has a team-best 46 draw controls. Senior defender Michelle Dufault anchors the Tigers' defensive unit with 24 caused turnovers. Senior Kelsea Donnelly enters the tournament with an 8.69 goals against average and a .482 save percentage.

Scouting Hofstra: Hofstra capped a perfect 6-0 CAA slate with a 9-8 comeback win over Drexel last Saturday. The Pride was led by Brittain Altomare who had four goals and eight draw controls in the victory. Altomare leads Hofstra on the season with 78 points on 39 goals and 39 assists. She also has a team-high 90 draw controls. Tianna Parrella and Morgan Knox are tied for second on the team with 32 points. Each have tallied 21 points and 11 assists. April Iannetta leads the Pride in ground balls (43) and caused turnovers (31). Kelsey Gregerson brings an 8.69 goals against average and a .426 save percentage into the tournament.

Towson-Hofstra Series History: Friday's game will be the 35th meeting all-time between the Tigers and Pride. It will also be the fifth meeting between the two schools in the CAA Tournament. Towson leads the all-time series 21-13 and the CAA Tournament match-up 3-1. Hofstra claimed an 8-7 double overtime victory when the two schools met in the regular season. In the CAA Tournament, Towson captured the 2005 and 2013 CAA Championships with wins over Hofstra. The Tigers also claimed a 6-5 win over the Pride last year in the CAA semifinals.

Title Defense: The Tigers look to defend their back-to-back-to-back CAA titles when the tournament begins on Friday. Towson will be making its 11th appearance in the CAA Tournament and eighth straight. The Tigers enter the tournament as something other than the number one seed for the first time since 2010. It is the third time the Tigers will be the fourth seed (won the tournament as the four seed in 2009). The Tigers will be looking for their seventh CAA title overall (2005, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2013 and 2014).

Some Things Change & Some Remain the Same: For the second straight year, the four teams advancing to the CAA Tournament remain the same, however the seeds have shifted. Towson, James Madison, Delaware and Hofstra all advanced to the CAA Tournament. James Madison and Delaware are the second and third seeds respectively for the second straight year. Towson and Hofstra have flipped spots from last year. Towson is 2-2 against James Madison in the CAA Tournament, 3-1 versus Hofstra and 1-0 against Delaware.

Should Be a Close One: Fans should expect a close game for the Tigers in the semifinals. Eight of Towson's 10 semifinal appearances have been decided by two goals or less. That includes the last three years which have all been one goal games. Last year's game was decided by Andi Raymond's goal with eight seconds to play.

Donnelly Dominates: Senior goalkeeper Kelsea Donnelly turned in a career performance in the Tigers' regular season finale against Johns Hopkins. Donnelly made a career-high 16 saves including several stops on point blank shots. The 16 saves were the most by a CAA goalie this season and the most by a Tiger goalie since Mary Teeters had 20 during the 2011 season. Donnelly was named the CAA and ECAC South Defensive Player of the Week on Monday for her performance.  
 
The Next Iron Tiger: Senior defender Michelle Dufault has been a mainstay in the Tiger line-up during her career. Dufault played in her 16th game of the season and 74th of her career in the regular season finale. Dufault broke Mary Teeters' (2009-12) school record for career starts (73) in the game. If the Tigers can advance to the CAA Championship game on Sunday, Dufault would have a chance to tie Katie Leech's (2011-14) school record for career games played (76).

What's Next? The winner of Friday's game will face the winner of the other semifinal game (No. 2 JMU/No. 3 Delaware) on Sunday, May 3 for the CAA Championship at 1 p.m.