ITHACA, N.Y. – One of the most successful women's basketball seasons ever at Ithaca moves into the postseason Friday as the Bombers host the Empire 8 Championship Tournament. Ithaca has hosted the playoff event four times since its inception in 2004; no other school has held it more than once.

This year's Empire 8 Championship Tournament features the league's last four champions: top-seeded Ithaca (21-4, 16-0), who won the 2007 title; second-seeded Stevens Institute of Technology (16-9, 12-4 Empire 8), last year's champion; third-seeded Utica (19-6, 12-4 Empire 8), who claimed the 2008 crown; and fourth-seeded St. John Fisher (14-10, 9-7 Empire 8), the Empire 8's 2006 titlist. The host Bombers face St. John Fisher at 6 p.m. in Friday's first semifinal with Stevens and Utica squaring off at 8 p.m. The semifinal winners face each other Saturday at 3 p.m. with the Empire 8's automatic bid to the NCAA playoffs at stake.

Fans can follow all three games online through Live Stats or ICTV's webcast. WICB will broadcast Ithaca's semifinal and the title game with Friday's second semifinal on VIC.

Ithaca, ranked 28th by D3hoops.com and 31st by the Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA), wrapped up the Empire 8's first 16-0 season – in any sport – last Friday, winning at Stevens. The Bombers have won a school-record 16 straight games and have been the top-ranked team in all four of the NCAA's East Region rankings (which are based on the same criteria used to select and seed team for the NCAA playoffs).

Senior point guard Katherine Bixby (Germantown Friends/Philadelphia, Pa.) is scoring a team-best 14.7 ppg. Bixby, who was recently named a first-team Empire 8 all star for the third year in a row, also leads the team with 87 assists. She averages 3.5 rebounds and 1.6 steals per game. Lindsay Brown (Immaculate/Danbury, Conn.), another senior guard, scores 12.5 ppg and leads Ithaca with 40 three-point baskets (one more than Bixby's made). A second-team all-conference pick, Brown averages 5.0 rpg and 1.8 steals and assists per game.

Junior forward Elissa Klie (Wyckoff/Ramapo, N.J.) also earned second-team Empire 8 all-star recognition. One of two Bombers to start all 25 games, she's averaging 10.8 ppg and leads Ithaca with 6.5 rpg, 74 steals and 29 blocked shots. Junior guard Jordan Confessore (South Brunswick/Kendall Park, N.J.), who's also started every game, is scoring 7.8 ppg while ranking second on the team with 5.2 rpg, 13 blocked shots and a 47.2 field-goal percentage. Confessore has added 49 assists and 28 steals.

Sophomore guard Jessica Farley (Pine Valley Central/South Dayton) rounds out Ithaca's starters. She's averaging 5.2 points, 3.4 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game. Sophomore Riley Dunn (Central Catholic/Bradford, Mass.), the first guard off the Bomber bench, is Ithaca's leading free-throw shooter (86.5 percent), while scoring 5.0 ppg.

Three frontcourt reserves have sees significant playing time: junior Blaire Moldenhauer (Albany R III/Albany, Mo.), a transfer from Bard, junior Jane DeBiasse (Chatham/Chatham, N.J.) and freshman Devin Shea (St. Basil Academy/Huntingdon Valley, Pa.). They've combined to average 12.3 points and 9.6 rebounds per game while totaling 48 assists, 35 steals and 30 blocked shots.

Ithaca is the only team to have qualified for every Empire 8 Championship Tournament and the Bombers hold a record of 7-3 in the five previous events. The Bombers are outscoring their opponents by nearly 13 ppg this winter and have held opposing shooters to 33.6 percent accuracy from the floor (and just 24.4 percent from three-point range).

The Bombers won their two games with St. John Fisher by an average of 19 ppg (the largest margin of victory ever in their four season sweeps over the Cardinals). Ithaca won two close games with the Pioneers (68-63 in Utica and 64-62 at Ben Light Gymnasium) and defeated Stevens twice to improve to 5-2 all-time against the Ducks (winning 62-59 at Ithaca and 58-48 in Hoboken).