AMHERST - If the University of Massachusetts men's lacrosse team were still in the ECAC, its season probably would be over.

The Minutemen had a solid 2011 season at 9-4, but their resume likely falls a little short of NCAA tournament at-large bid status without enough signature wins. The ECAC has no conference tournament and the Minutemen would have been stuck waiting for next year.

But now, as a member of the Colonial Athletic Association, hope is still very much alive as the No. 3-seed Minutemen (9-4) play No. 2 Penn State (7-6) tonight at 7 in the semifinal round of the CAA tournament at State College.

UMass coach Greg Cannella thinks the addition of the four-team event is a positive part of joining the CAA.

"You have another shot at getting to the NCAA tournament," Cannella said. "It should help the RPIs of the teams involved because you're going to play a quality opponent, maybe two quality opponents."

The winner will face the winner of No. 1 Hofstra and No. 4 Delaware, Saturday at 7 p.m. at the home site of the highest remaining seed. The league champion gets an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

While the Minutemen were still in the running for the CAA's No. 1 seed less than two weeks ago, No. 3 might be a lucky spot if recent history is any indication. The No. 3 seed has won the conference tournament each of the last two seasons - Villanova in 2009 and Delaware last year.

After getting pounded by Hofstra, 14-5 on April 23, UMass earned the third spot with a bounce-back 11-5 win over Delaware on Friday.

"We all knew that we just didn't show up in that Hofstra game. It was one of the worst games we've played. We didn't execute and didn't really do anything," said sophomore attack Will Manny. "We went from one of our worst games to one of our best games. It was a great night."

Cannella was pleased with his team's resilience.

"That was very encouraging. It was the first time all year that we've come out and played like that against a quality opponent," Cannella said. "We haven't been able to string something like that together and get that type of lead. ... We're trying to keep that positive feeling going. You also have to be leery of it too. If you go in floating and not focused, you're going to get stomped on."

Penn State beat the Minutemen 8-7 in the teams' earlier meeting this year in Amherst behind a brilliant effort by freshman goalie Austin Kaut. His 25 saves were the most by any Division I goalie in a game this season.

"He's a great goalie and had a great game against us last time. We've been working on shooting to where the goalie is not going to be," Manny said. "As long as we shoot better, we should come out with the win. I'm pretty sure he's not going to make 25 saves on us again."

Cannella thinks having more available tape on Kaut as well as a previous meeting will help UMass be better prepared to face him this time.

"Hopefully, we'll have a better scout on what he does well and maybe what he doesn't do well," Cannella said.

Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Follow UMass coverage on Twitter at twitter.com/GazetteUMass. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at http://www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage.