TOWSON, Md. - The great poet Robert Frost once observed that home is the place where they have to take you in when you go there.

For the Towson field hockey team, home will be the place where the Tigers will have to win to continue their season when the squad returns home this weekend.

The Tigers have a pair of matches at Johnny Unitas® Stadium - one against Hofstra Friday night with the season finale on Sunday afternoon against Northeastern.

At 8-9 overall with a 2-4 mark in Colonial Athletic Association play, Towson will need to sweep its games to have a chance to get into the six-team conference tournament, which will be hosted by Old Dominion next week.

“That's more motivation for our team to play as hard as we can because we really want to make it to the CAA Tournament,” said senior forward Katie DeFilippo.

The field turf of Unitas Stadium – where the Tigers are 3-1 this year – may contain some kind of elixir for Towson, as the surface, which is a blend of natural and artificial grasses, yields consistent results for the team.

By contrast, the artificial turf field at Delaware, where the Tigers dropped a 3-1 decision Sunday, and the similar surface at Maryland, where the team lost to Virginia, Bucknell and Maryland, plays fast like staging a game on a billiards table.

“It's kind of hard for our team to switch back and forth between the field turf and the regular turf,” said DeFilippo. “So, when we get back on the regular turf, it's just so much faster and it kind of takes us a while to readjust our skills to playing on that kind of surface. It really didn't work to our advantage [Sunday.]”

Towson's inconsistencies on artificial turf are just a reflection of the rollercoaster quality of the team's season as a whole. The Tigers have had a pair of three-game losing skeins at either end of the season with a five-game win streak in the middle.

“During those games that we did win, we really communicated with each other and helped each other out, and we moved as a team, which is why we won,” said DeFilippo, who attended South Carroll High School.

DeFilippo and fellow senior Kim Schnell, a midfielder, share the team lead with five goals while Jamie Salvador, another senior midfielder, helps to provide team leadership.

“We have some off games here or there, but I think we're pretty good at getting ourselves to bring it together and make sure that we change the way we're playing for the better,” DeFilippo.

For this weekend, however, keeping things nice and consistent at home will do just fine.