At 3:30 this afternoon, when the men's lacrosse team heads to Jeffrey Field for its match against nationally-ranked Towson State, its defense will probably lead the way.

The Intimidator, The Bully and Mr. Consistent, otherwise known as Paul Gilhool, Mark Dardaris and Paul McKelvey, will unite with goalkeeper J.J. Pearl to try to put a stop to the ever-elusive Towson offense.

"(Aggressiveness) makes you feel a lot more confident and stronger with your play, which helps me psychologically get more prepared for the game," Gilhool said. "We joke around about it in the locker room and it really gets us psyched up to play."

Gilhool has earned his name as the Intimidator with his especially aggressive style of play. During any given game, he is seen relentlessly chasing his opponents, smacking them across the head and chest with his stick. The fans respond to his rough play with enthusiasm and his mother was heard cheering him on at the Penn State Invitational.

Gilhool teams up with McKelvey and Dardaris, who complement his style of play.

"Since we've been playing together for two years, Paul McKelvey and I for three years, we always know exactly what each other's going to do at any time," Gilhool said.

In today's game, Gilhool said his aggressiveness, coupled with Dardaris' hard-hitting play and McKelvey's consistency, will be vital in shutting down No. 7 Towson's offense. The Tigers are 4-0 on the season and the Lions (4-2) are 3-6 against them since 1981.

Gilhool said Glen Smith, Towson's No. 1 scorer, will probably be the concentration of their efforts.

"We'll shut off a lot on (Smith), overplay the ball and play really aggressive, hard defense. Then we'll probably move to a very aggressive on-the-ball zone and switch up defenses a lot on them to throw off their offense," Gilhool said.

Coach Glenn Thiel stressed the threat of Towson's ability to alter their defensive plays to confuse their opponents.

"One unique thing about Towson is they'll play a multiple group of defenses, all kinds of defenses," he said. "Anything you can think of they'll try it just to throw you off track offensively. If you let that bother you, you can be in trouble. But a lot of times you can use that to your advantage."

Thiel also said that Towson's offense is a dangerous unit. Seven of eight top scorers are returning for Towson, he said, including Smith and John Batchley.

"(Smith and Batchley) are two really talented players," Thiel said. "One's a feeder, one's a power shooter.

"If things fall in place for us and we play the kind of game we're capable of playing we can be right there with them. If not, the same thing could happen this year that happened last year -- the score looked close, but it wasn't close."

Gilhool said Thiel has been preparing for Towson's versatile offense with emphasis on "team defense, a lot of hustle and picking up ground balls to get fast breaks."

The Lions had mixed practices last week to prepare for both Lafayette and Towson. Gilhool said they knew that Lafayette wouldn't be a major powerhouse so they spent some time preparing for Towson to make up for the reduced practices between games.