TOWSON, Md. – Saturday afternoon opens the 2020 lacrosse season for the Towson University women's lacrosse squad with a home matchup against Penn State.
First draw is set for noon at Johnny Unitas ® Stadium. The game will be streamed on the Towson Sports Network with
Kyle Rae on the call and live stats will be available on TowsonTigers.com. All streaming links can be found on the women's lacrosse schedule page.
The Penn State Series
This will be the third consecutive weekend opening against Penn State. Last year the teams met in State College and the Nittany Lions came out on top 13-7. Penn State leads the series 9-1 and Saturday will be the 11
th all-time meeting between these squads. Towson took its first win of the series on Feb. 10, 2018 at home, a 14-13 victory.
The 2020 Tigers
Towson returns a lot of strength from last season's squad, especially defensively with
Sami Chenoweth and
Olivia Conti. Returning on offense are
Rayna Deltuva,
Shelby Stack,
Kaitlin Thornton,
Kerri Thornton and
Kerri Liucci, all of whom scored 10 or more goals last season.
Kaitlin Thornton is Towson's returning scoring leader with 31 goals and 14 assists last season. The Tigers also have a handful of fresh faces with seven freshman including two goalkeepers.
Scouting Penn State
The Nittany Lions are coming off an 8-9 season last year with a 3-3 mark in conference play. Penn State returns its top-three scorers in Maria Auth, Quinn Nicolai and Sophia Triandafils. Auth and Nicolai finished with 32 and 34 goals respectively in 2019. On the defensive side the Nittany Lions lost their top two defenders to graduation, but return Alyssa Sloane who was third on the team in caused turnovers and fourth in ground balls. In the net junior Taylor Suplee returns after starting all 17 games last year. Suplee finished with 165 saves on a .481 save percentage in 2019.
Last Time Against Penn State
Three Tigers scored, led by then-sophomore
Kaitlin Thornton with three goals and an assist. Four and a half minutes in the game was tied up 1-1 and tied twice more in the first half. Entering halftime the road team was up by one following a goal with less than three minutes to go in the half. Penn State scored two straight to start the second half, Thornton tied it up again at the 22:41 mark, then the Nittany Lions scored four unanswered taking a 9-5 lead. Towson only scored twice more as the home team ran the advantage up to take the win.
Opening Weekend
This will be head coach
Sonia LaMonica's 10
th opening day at Towson. In the last 17 seasons the Tigers are 13-4 and have won four of the last six. Under LaMonica the Tigers are 4-5 on opening day.
Preseason Honors
Yet another hot preseason for Towson women's lacrosse players.
Sami Chenoweth received a big nod on the Inside Lacrosse Preseason All-American Second Team.
Olivia Conti was named an IL Preseason All-American Honorable Mention as her name and Chenoweth's graced the CAA Preseason Team list. Joining them in the conference preseason honor group was
Kaitlin Thornton.
The Road Ahead
Following this weekend the Tigers will be on the road for three of the next four games. Next Saturday Towson hits 95 North to Philadelphia and a game at Saint Joseph's and then a midweek game at Loyola (Md.) is on Wednesday Feb. 19. Closing out February the Tigers host High Point on the 29th before traveling again for a Thursday game at Stony Brook on March 5.
