Olivia Conti is the two-time Colonial Athletic Association Defender of the Year, but learning the Towson defense didn’t come easily.

Even as she was turning heads with her play, her head was spinning throughout her entire freshman year.

“I had no idea what a zone was or how you ran it,” said Conti, who will be a junior this year. “Coming in, it was kind of hard to learn and get a feel for how you play and where everyone was supposed to be on the field. The defense is so different from other defenses. A lot of teams run a zone, but no one can run a zone the way we run ours. It’s very different.”

Conti says it took until 2018 to get to a real comfort level with Towson’s defense. She emerged in that time to become one of only two sophomores among 25 Tewaaraton Award nominees.

“We practice every day and it’s not something you can just learn in a week,” Conti said. “It takes time. It’s a lot of communication and it’s your personnel on the field. You can’t just throw seven girls on the field and have them play zone defense. It all has a lot to do with who’s on the field and how they communicate with each other.”

Towson coach Sonia LaMonica credits the Tigers’ defensive scheme under third-year defensive coach Mike Molster, but also believes that last year’s personnel may have been the most talented the Tigers have ever had.

“Defensively, we just have some fantastic individuals,” LaMonica said. “The athleticism is something that’s a big part of what helps us. The mentality that comes from the type of players that we recruit here to Towson, they’re gritty and embrace hard work. They just work their tails off. Ultimately, it’s come down to pride.

“It’s become a bit of our identity. To become one of the best defenses in the country, that’s what we talk about and that’s how we act. Our players buy in and they go to work. Obviously, you can’t have much success without outstanding chemistry which we’ve had year after year. We’ve had really great leaders within the unit who have just done an outstanding job of bringing that group together and understanding that they’re one unit.”

Conti and fellow returning starters and juniors defender Sami Chenoweth and goalie Kiley Keating are hoping the Tigers can improve on last year’s 16-5 mark — the seventh seed in the NCAA tournament and a second-round finish. Towson is getting more dynamic on the offensive end, but it’s still a defense-driven squad. They ranked seventh in the country in scoring defense at 9.38 goals per game last year. They broke their program record with 232 caused turnovers, good for 10th in the country in caused turnovers per game, after also establishing a new program record one year earlier.

“Caused turnovers, that’s personnel driven,” LaMonica said. “There’s no question we talk about dictating defensively, playing aggressively, making plays, taking some risks. That’s a part of our approach and our philosophy. When you have the talent, you can do it. As we saw this past year, we caused over 200 turnovers this past season. We have a lot of playmakers down there.”

One significant defensive playmaker to replace is All-American defender Tianna Wallpher. Wallpher had a career-high 42 caused turnovers a year ago and was literally the center of Towson’s zone defense that LaMonica doesn’t characterize as a traditional backer zone.

“We’re guarding zones around perimeter and we have an individual who’s guarding the inside,” LaMonica said. “They’re sharing that workload. The backer to me is a little more of — I think back to the original when Northwestern came out with their backer and you had high pressure adjacent to the ball and there was a different goal in place. They were looking to create a different thing. Essentially the zone is where openings in the middle look open and they’re not when you get the ball in there. You get closed in on. That’s been the obvious hardest approach to the zone defense that we have been running.”

LaMonica had her teams previously using more man defense, but went almost exclusively to a zone defense in 2016 when the NCAA changed the 3-second rule to a minor infraction. Towson finished fourth in scoring defense. When the NCAA changed the violation back to a major rule, Towson stuck with the zone in 2017 and finished 16th in scoring defense, and when free movement came in 2018 the Tigers still stayed in zone about 70 percent of the time, but did play more man-to-man defense than in recent seasons in part because of their talented and experienced personnel.

“In years before that, we kind of lived and died by the sword with the zone,” LaMonica said. “This past year, I wanted to be more diverse in what we could do defensively. That, I think, allowed us to continue to do some good things defensively and continue to get stronger.”

With either of their defenses, Towson was aggressive. It was the fifth-most penalized team in the country in fouls per game, and it was whistled for a good amount of 3-second violations. Towson was willing to trade those violations for its overall defense, and out of the top 10 scoring defenses nationally, Towson was fourth in preventing free-position goals.

“With the 3-second violations that you might be a little more vulnerable for, that was an initial concern, but we worked through that,” LaMonica said. “We didn’t feel it would be that bad. Just because it put the shooter on the [8-meter], it didn’t necessarily translate into a goal like it did when we didn’t have free movement. I couldn’t tell you how many times we were able to negate an 8-meter shooter from scoring with those adjacent defenders.”

Towson is counting on its veteran returning players to take the lead while they find a way to replace Wallpher. Conti looks to build on a season in which she set a school and CAA record with 52 caused turnovers.

“I’ve never thought about defense being such a rewarding position,” Conti said. “In college, it’s so much more rewarding to have the caused turnover with your whole defense putting in that effort. It’s so different. I think it’s so rewarding. It’s such a rewarding position that people don’t realize until you play it. You make such a difference.”

Alongside her is Chenoweth, an All-CAA Second Team selection. She was second on the Tigers with 44 caused turnovers, and was second on the team with 51 ground balls.

“She’s one of our best defenders when it comes to your 1v1 defense,” LaMonica said. “She’s a key matchup player. Her instincts are just incredible. She’ll be another leader for us. This past year, she was an All-American caliber, but it’s tough to give Towson three All-Americans on defense.”

Keating is another important cog that returns. In her second season starting, the Towson goalie sat 26th nationally in save percentage at .474.

“With Kiley in goal, we have a rock-solid goalie like we’ve had with Kelsea Donnelly and before that Mary Teeters,” LaMonica said. “Kiley is no different. She’s one of the best we’ve had. It helps to have a great presence in the cage, somebody who has some talent and who is really very level-headed. We really do return a lot. The key factor will be the leadership role.”

Meg Lynch is a senior starter whose sister Molly will join the team on attack and whose brother played for the Towson men. Lynch comes off her best season. Towson will spend the fall assessing what sort of defense it can use more effectively with a few new pieces.

“We put a lot of time in our scheme and strategy,” LaMonica said. “There’s no question that zone defenses force teams to play a certain way. I do think that compared to two or three years ago when some teams were playing zone, you saw teams struggling a lot more with how to overcome it. This past year, a lot of teams continued running zones, and a lot of teams knew how to break zones.”

Conti is ready to up her own leadership role in her third season. She is the first player to be named CAA Defender of the Year in her first two seasons of college.

“Coming in, being on the field and having the help I did with all the older girls was awesome,” she said. “It was like I was guided through my first year and it was really nice. It was like having everyone there for you. And then the second year you come in and you know what to expect so you have to step up a little. As a sophomore, I was still an underclassman, but I knew what to expect and I knew what to do. Coming into my third year, being an upperclassman, you have to do the same for the younger girls that the older girls did for me.”

Conti, her classmates and the Towson seniors will rely on their experience to lead the way at the defensive end.

“No one is ever going to be perfect at it,” Conti said. “You’re always adjusting things and moving things in our zone. We learn something new every practice. It takes time. What’s helped is other teammates and upperclassmen who have been doing it for years really make you feel very confident in every move you make.”

Her top priority will be sharing Towson’s defensive identity with the newcomers, and sustaining its standards that have been established for a Tigers talent pool that continues to grow.

“It’s more of being very confident, not in a bad way,” Conti said. “We have a very confident defense. We all work very well together. Me, Sami, Riley, we got that from freshman year. We came together and learned the defense together in the fall. We went through it together. It really helped us all have our confidence and boost each other up.

“It’s pride and confidence. We all want to help each other out. We’re there for each other on and off the field. I think most teams that are successful have. Our defense is one thing we’re all proud of.”