NEWARK, Del. – The fourth seed Towson University women's lacrosse team scored two goals while two-men down and rallied for a 7-3 overtime win over the top seed Hofstra University in the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) semifinals on Friday afternoon. The Tigers (9-8) avenged a regular season loss to the Pride and advanced to their fifth straight CAA Championship game.

The Tigers will face No. 2 James Madison in Sunday's championship game at 1 p.m.

"Unbelievable, our girls never lost hope and kept battling today," said Towson Head Coach Sonia LaMonica. "We made some errors today but they never lost faith and continued to rally and worked hard for each other. They really dug in and made it count when they needed to."

The Tigers and Pride battled early and the game was scoreless through the first 10 minutes. Hofstra finally broke through with a goal from Tiana Parrella at 18:58 and took a 1-0 lead. The Pride (11-6) added to their lead at 14:51 as Lindsey Alfano scored off a pass from Brittain Altomare. Despite the Tigers outshooting Hofstra 10-9 in the first half, the Pride took a 2-0 lead at the half.

The Pride won all three of the first half draw controls. Towson got five first half saves from senior Kelsea Donnelly.

Hofstra goalkeeper Kelsey Gregerson kept the Tigers off the board until there was 15:27 to play in the second half. At that point freshman attacker Jenna Kerr took a pass from freshman midfielder Kaitlyn Montalbano and buried it in the back of the net. Less than a minute later it was Kerr striking for the equalizer. Kerr's second of the game came off a pass from redshirt senior attacker Andi Raymond and made it a 2-2 game with 14:31 to play in regulation.

Parrella's second of the game gave Hofstra a 3-2 lead with 7:26 left in the half.

Towson tied the game at 3-3 as Raymond scored with 4:40 to play in regulation. Neither team was able to score in the final four plus minutes and the two squads headed to overtime for the second time this season.

The Tiger offense dominated play in the second half as they outshot the Pride 15-4 and won three of the five draw controls.

The Tigers were forced to play a large chunk of the overtime session man down. Towson was hit with a yellow card with 5:40 to go in overtime. That player left the box early and forced to sit an additional two minutes. A second yellow card on the Tigers at 3:26 left the black and gold two-men down.

The Tigers managed to break through as senior midfielder Paige Duncan cut through traffic and scored off a pass from Raymond with 2:15 to play in overtime. Just 13 seconds later, the Tigers added to their lead at Raymond scored an unassisted goal. Both of those goals came while the Tigers were two-men down.

Raymond completed her hat trick with an empty net goal at 1:21 and sophomore midfielder Samantha Brookhart added a goal with 16 seconds to play to seal the 7-3 victory.
Towson outshot the Pride 4-3 in overtime and finished the game with a 29-16 advantage. The Tigers won four of the six draw controls as both teams won seven draw controls in the game.

Donnelly finished with eight saves, including several on point blank shots, and earned the win in goal. Gregerson made 10 saves in the loss for the Pride.

Raymond led the Tigers with three goals and two assists for five points. Kerr added two goals while sophomore defender Kelly McQuilkin had three ground balls and three caused turnovers.

Parrella had two goals for Hofstra. CAA Defensive Player of the Year Michelle Dufault held the Pride's Altomare, who was the CAA Player of the Year, to three assists.

Towson resumes play on Sunday, May 1 when it plays in the CAA Championship at 1 p.m. Towson Sports Network's Kevin Copp will call the game while the game will also be shown on TV by the American Sports Network.