Opening Draw: The Towson University women's lacrosse team faces a familiar foe as the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) semifinals get underway Friday night. For the second straight year, the Tigers have earned the second seed and will face number three Elon. Opening draw is set for 6:30 p.m. from Johnny Unitas Stadium. Lax Sports Network will have coverage of the game with Travis Eldridge and Halley Quillinan. Towson Sports Network's Ben Rosenbaum will have audio coverage of the game starting at 6:15 p.m. Links to the live stats, video and audio feeds can be found on the schedule page of TowsonTIgers.com. Fans can also follow the Tigers on Twitter (@Towson_WLAX) for updates.

Updating the Tigers: The Tigers closed out the regular season with a dominating 18-5 win over Johns Hopkins on Sunday. Junior midfielder Kaitlyn Montalbano tallied a team-high seven points on five goals and two assists. The Tigers have showcased a balanced attack all season long as four players have 50 plus points and five players have 40 or more points this season. Senior attacker Samantha Brookhart leads the team in points (63) and assists (47). Sophomore attacker Natalie Sulmonte, sophomore attacker Carly Tellekamp and Montalbano have each tallied 50 or more points this season. Sulmonte has 41 goals and 17 assists for 58 points while Tellekamp has a team-high 49 goals and eight assists for 57 points. Montalbano adds 41 goals and 11 assists on the year. Sulmonte has also pulled down a team-high 75 draw controls. Junior defender Tianna Wallpher has scooped up a team-high 45 ground balls. Freshman defender Olivia Conti leads the squad with 45 caused turnovers. Sophomore Angie Benson carries a 8.68 goals against average and a .495 save percentage into Sunday's game.

Scouting Elon: Elon enters the CAA Tournament riding a four-game win streak after an 18-4 win over William & Mary in the regular season finale. Abby Godfrey led the Phoenix with four goals in that game. Stephanie Asher leads Elon with 63 points on 53 goals and 10 assists. Sloane Kessler has a balanced line with 23 goals and 22 assists for 45 points. Alexis Zadjura has pulled down a team-best 30 draw controls. Rachel Ramirez leads Elon in cage with an 8.62 goals against average and a .487 save percentage. She also has a team-best 54 ground balls and 28 caused turnovers.

Towson-Elon Series History: Friday will be the fifth meeting all-time between the Tigers and Phoenix. The Tigers have won each of the previous four meetings. Earlier this season, Towson earned a 19-7 win over Elon when the two teams met in Unitas Stadium. Junior Kaitlyn Montalbano was one of four Tigers to post a hat trick in the game as she finished with five goals and one assist. In addition senior Samantha Brookhart dished out six assists. Melissa Birdsell had a pair of goals for the Phoenix.

This Is It: Towson begins its CAA title defense and it's search for the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The Tigers will be making their 13th appearance in the CAA Tournament and ninth straight. Towson has captured seven CAA crowns since joining the league for the 2002 season (2005, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2016). The Tigers will be the second seed for the second straight year and fifth time overall. Towson won the CAA Championship as the No. 2 seed in 2005 and 2016.

I'm Honored: The Tigers were well represented as the CAA released its end-of-the-year awards. For the seventh time under head coach Sonia LaMonica, the Tigers claimed one of the CAA major awards. Freshman defender Olivia Conti was named the CAA Defensive Player of the Year. Conti becomes the first freshman in league history to win the award and Towson's fourth defensive player of the year (Julie Ondrako-2009, Alexa Demski-2013, Michelle Dufault-2014, Conti-2017). Towson led the league with nine all conference honorees. Conti also took home First Team All-CAA honors. She was joined on the first team by sophomore attacker Natalie Sulmonte, junior midfielder Kaitlyn Montalbano and junior defender Tianna Wallpher. Towson led the league with four first team selection. Senior attacker Samantha Brookhart, sophomore attacker Carly Tellekamp and junior midfielder Emily Gillingham were all named Second Team All-CAA honorees. Conti was joined on the CAA All-Rookie squad by fellow freshman defender Sami Chenoweth. Redshirt freshman midfielder Maddie Dickman was the Tigers' selection to the CAA All-Academic squad.

Some Things Change While Others Remain the Same: For the tenth time since Towson joined the CAA, both the Tigers and James Madison will be a part of the CAA Tournament field. The Tigers and Dukes have been the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds in the field seven of those years. Delaware will be making its first appearance in the tournament since 2015 while Elon, who joined the CAA prior to the start of the 2014-15 season, is making its second straight appearance. Towson is 3-3 against the Dukes in CAA Tournament action and is 1-0 against Delaware and Elon.  

Miss Assist: Senior attacker Samantha Brookhart finished with four assists on Sunday versus Johns Hopkins. It was Brookhart's 12th game this season with multiple assists and raised her season total to 47 helpers. With her first assist of the game, Brookhart broke Meggie McNamara's school record for single-season assists (43-2009). Brookhart enters the semifinals needing three assists to break the CAA single-season assists mark (49) and three assists to break the Towson career assists mark (Ashleigh Rohrback-91). Brookhart is ranked among the top five in the nation in assists and assists per game.

Let's Get Defensive: Freshman defender Olivia Conti isn't the only Tiger to earn Defensive Player of the Year accolades this season. Senior Tyler Mayes was named the CAA Defensive
Player of the Year on the men's side on Wednesday night. It is just the third time in league history that a school has had the men's and women's lacrosse defensive player of the year in the same season (Hofstra - 2005, Brett Moyer and Bridget Eder, Towson - 2015, Tyler White and Michelle Dufault).

Hats Off to You: A trio of Tigers recorded hat tricks in the 18-5 win over Johns Hopkins last time out. Junior midfielder Kaitlyn Montalbano recorded five goals on five shots and posted her third straight hat trick and sixth of the season. She has 15 hat tricks for her career. Sophomore attacker Natalie Sulmonte had her team-leading tenth hat trick of the season. She now has 15 three-goal games in her career. Sophomore attacker Carly Tellekamp finished with five goals against the Blue Jays and contributed her seventh hat trick of the season. She has 11 hat tricks in her career.

Up Next: The winner of the Towson/Elon semifinal advances to face the winner of the James Madison/Delaware semifinal in the CAA Championship game on Sunday, May 7 at 1 p.m.