Hempstead, NY –The Hofstra Men's Lacrosse team will head north to Amherst, Massachusetts on Friday, April 27 when the Pride take on the Minutemen of the University of Massachusetts in the final Colonial Athletic Association regular season contest for both teams. Game time at Richard Garber Field is 5 p.m.

The Lax Sports Network will provide exclusive live video while UMass will provide live stats of the Pride-Minutemen contest. Both links are available on this page as well as on the men's lacrosse schedule page at GoHofstra.com.

Three of the four spots in the 2018 CAA Men's Lacrosse Championship Tournament will be on the line this weekend as all six conference schools will be in action. While UMass (9-4, 4-0) has already clinched the top seed in the championship and will host the four-team tournament on May 3 and 5, the other five conference schools are in contention for a berth. Hofstra (6-6, 2-2) is in a three-way tie for second-place with Delaware (5-7, 2-2) and Towson (5-7, 2-2). Drexel (5-7, 1-3) and Fairfield (4-10, 1-3) are tied for fifth-place. The Pride is in with a win and could also advance to the championships with a loss, based on tie-breaking scenarios which can be found in the game notes.
 
The Pride is coming off a decisive 16-8 CAA victory at Drexel in the annual HEADstrong Foundation Hero Bowl between the two schools last Saturday. Senior Alex Moeser led a Hofstra first-half onslaught with three goals and two assists in the first 30 minutes as the Pride opened up a 7-1 lead at the break on the way to the victory. Classmate Dylan Alderman added two goals and two assists, junior Jimmy Yanes tallied three goals and one assist while sophomore Ryan Tierney also contributed three goals. Senior Brendan Kavanagh and freshman Dylan McIntosh chipped in a goal and an assist while newcomer Keegan Santos scored his first collegiate goal to close out the scoring. Senior goalie Jack Concannon made eight saves in the Pride cage.

On the season, Hofstra leads the nation in defense, allowing only 7.17 goals per game while scoring 9.00 goals per outing. Hofstra has six players in double-figures in points through 12 games as Tierney leads the team with 47 points on 26 goals and 21 assists. Yanes has 31 points on 20 goals and 11 assists while McIntosh has 19 goals and two assists. Alderman, who missed four games this season with an injury, has 10 goals and 11 assists in eight games.

Sophomore Kyle Gallagher is now 123-for-212 in face-offs for a .580 winning percentage, while also picking up a team-best 83 ground balls and scoring three goals. He ranks 11^th in ground balls per game and 20^th in face-off winning percentage in Division I. Concannon, who was selected by the Florida Launch in the fourth round of Major League Lacrosse Collegiate Draft on April 18th, leads the nation in goals against average with a 7.11 slate and is ninth in save percentage with a .564 mark with 110 saves.
 
UMass, which is riding an eight-game winning streak and has outscored their opponents, 100-60 during that time, has wins over Sacred Heart (13-9), NJIT (17-3), UMass Lowell (13-6), Hartford (17-13), Brown (14-12), Drexel (11-10), Delaware (9-8), Towson (8-4) and Fairfield (11-4). Their losses have come against Army (18-6), Harvard (16-11), Yale (13-10) and Albany (19-8). The Minutemen average 11.38 goals per game while allowing 10.38 per outing.

UMass is led in scoring by Buddy Carr with 29 goals and 20 assists while Jeff Trainor has 24 goals and 14 assists and Chris Connolly has chipped in with 19 goals and 18 assists. In the Minutemen cage, Sean Scanone has a 10.31 goals against average with 61 saves.

Friday's game is the 44^th meeting between Hofstra and UMass with the Minutemen holding a 23-20 series lead. While Hofstra has won three of the last five meetings, UMass edged the Pride in the CAA semifinals, 13-12 on a last second goal in their last encounter.