Towson men’s lacrosse has an embarrassment of riches.

Two days after Mikey Weisshaar proved why he deserved to be named the Coastal Athletic Association’s Offensive Player of the Year, Ronan Fitzpatrick demonstrated the reasoning behind the conference’s decision to honor him as the Rookie of the Year by scoring five goals to spark the No. 1 seed Tigers to a 13-10 victory over No. 3 seed Drexel on Saturday afternoon in the league tournament final before an announced 1,377 at Johnny Unitas Stadium.

Towson (11-5) raised its CAA record of tournament crowns to 10 and captured its second consecutive title. The team earned the conference’s automatic qualifier to the NCAA Tournament and will learn its first-round matchup when the 18-team field is unveiled Sunday night on ESPNU.

The Tigers’ two wins in the past three days were buoyed by their attack duo of Weisshaar and Fitzpatrick. Weisshaar, an Arnold resident and Archbishop Spalding graduate, racked up five goals and three assists in Thursday’s 11-10 overtime win against No. 4 seed Hofstra in the semifinals, and Fitzpatrick amassed two goals and two assists.

On Saturday, with the Dragons paying an increased amount of defensive attention on Weisshaar, the offense was fueled by Fitzpatrick, who enjoyed a hat trick in the first half. A redshirt freshman who likely would not have started 15 games this spring if junior Joaquin Villagomez, a Severna Park resident and graduate, had not been injured, Fitzpatrick entered the game ranked second on the team in both goals (34) and points (45).

“It feels pretty awesome,” said Fitzpatrick, who was placed on the All-CAA Tournament team. “I worked really hard this year. Last year was pretty rough for me. I battled back, and it feels good to help my team win this chip.”

Fitzpatrick recorded his third five-goal outing of the season. While he was one shy of his career high set in a 19-18 overtime decision against Delaware on March 15, Fitzpatrick’s production wasn’t lost on coach Shawn Nadelen.

“Ronan has had a strong year,” he said. “He started strong and got into maybe a little bit of a lull. But again, he’s a freshman, and we knew he was battling through some rookie mistakes, and people are paying more attention to him. We kind of figured coming out of our first game with Drexel, they’d really want to contain Mikey again if we saw them again. We kind of anticipated that, and that opened up everybody else. Ronan at times definitely opened some things up, and he was able to capitalize on some nice opportunities.”

After racking up six goals and one assist in a 12-8 win at Drexel on March 29, Weisshaar finished with two goals, three assists, three turnovers, three ground balls and one caused turnover — just a slight downturn from Thursday when he added four ground balls, three caused turnovers and two turnovers.

But the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player had more help with graduate student midfielder Chop Gallagher totaling two goals and two assists and redshirt sophomore attackman Ryan Schrier, an Odenton resident and Archbishop Spalding graduate, and graduate student midfielder Josh Webber, a Sykesville resident and Calvert Hall graduate, chipping in a goal and an assist each.

That offensive versatility made life difficult for the Dragons, according to coach Steven Boyle.

“Overall, they made enough plays, and the two guys down there, 29 and 1, are very good players for them,” said Boyle, a three-time All-American attackman at Johns Hopkins from 2007 to 2010. “And they showed up and did a great job.”

Towson’s fortunes turned in the first half when the team scored five consecutive goals in an 11:02 stretch bridging the first two quarters to go from trailing 2-1 to leading 6-2.

One goal during that run was perhaps the most striking. During a scrum for a loose ball along the left sideline, Dragons sophomore defenseman Pat Lyman got possession, but was forced to flick the ball towards his own cage as he was falling out of bounds.

Junior short-stick defensive midfielder Jack Nolan misplayed the pass, and the ball ricocheted off his right foot and into the bottom right corner of the net just as sophomore goalkeeper Brendan Donnelly was racing to get back into position. Drexel’s own goal gave the Tigers a 3-2 lead.

In the fourth quarter, the Dragons shaved the deficit down to one at 8-7 and 9-8. But Towson erupted for four unanswered goals in a 6:13 span bookended by tallies from Fitzpatrick.

The Tigers went 3-for-3 on extra-man opportunities, tying a season high in goals in those situations. They scored three man-up goals in an 11-6 loss to St. Joseph’s on Feb. 22 and the victory over Delaware.

After a 1-5 start to the season, Towson extended its winning streak to 10 in a row. Nadelen said he appreciates the players’ dedication to improvement.

“From the onset of the season, kind of a rough start and found a groove in CAA play and kept it going strong through this championship playoff weekend,” he said. “This week was not easy. The CAA is not easy in general. But what these guys battled through and stayed focused on, the process of Thursday and moving into Saturday and whatever we had to do and whoever it took stepping up and getting the job done, these guys just continue to show their toughness and resiliency, and it’s just impressive.”

Junior attackman Conor Hooley paced Drexel with three goals and one assist, and sophomore attackman Witt Crawford compiled two goals and two assists.

Donnelly totaled a game-high 12 saves, and senior faceoff specialist Aidan Shortley won 15 of 26 faceoffs with a game-best seven ground balls.

But after shocking No. 2 seed Fairfield, 14-6, on Thursday, the Dragons (8-8) dropped to 2-4 in CAA title games and missed their first championship since 2021. Boyle noted that Drexel’s 12 turnovers in the first half compared with Towson’s six forced the team to play from behind.

“Every time we got real close, I felt like they made one more play to respond or we made a mistake to kind of hurt ourselves, and ultimately, it cost us in the end, and they did a good job making plays,” he said. “That’s where it kind of got away from us.”

Have a news tip? Contact Edward Lee at eklee@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/EdwardLeeSun.