ITHACA, N.Y. – Fresh off its dominant 2-0 victory over St. Lawrence in the Liberty League Quarterfinals, the Ithaca College women's soccer team are looking to repeat as the conference champions this weekend as they will take on the No. 2 seeded RIT Tigers on Friday with the championship match then played on Sunday. The Bombers earned the No. 3 seed and will travel to Rochester, N.Y. for Friday's semifinal round as they will take on RIT at 4 p.m.

Ithaca College used a pair of second half goals to push past St. Lawrence after outshooting them 24-4 on Tuesday as they won their first-ever match playing on Bertino Field at Butterfield Stadium. With the win IC improved to 10-2-4 as they snapped a streak of three-straight games finishing in a tie.

The No. 1 seed this year is once again William Smith (11-0-4, 6-0-3 Liberty League) and they will host RPI (9-4-4, 3-4-2 Liberty League) the No. 5 seed in the other semifinal game on Friday. The highest remaining seed will host the championship match on Sunday, November 5.

Fans can follow along with the Ithaca/RIT semifinal via a video webcast and live stats.
 
LIBERTY LEAGUE HISTORY:
The Bombers won their first-ever Liberty League Championship during the 2022 season in thrilling fashion as they bested William Smith in penalty kicks. Prior to that, William Smith won 14-striaght LL championships as the Herons have squared off against the Bombers in the last two championship matches, each of which has gone down to the final minutes of play.
 
SCOUTING ITHACA:
A feature of many of Mindy Quigg's best teams is once again prevalent in the 2023 version of the Bombers as they feature arguably the stingiest defense within the conference. Ithaca has given up just six goals all season long as they feature a strong defensive backline in Allison Heft, Allie McCabe, Clare Sunderland and Ali Amari who have helped goalkeeper Grace Hickey to 10 shutouts, which also leads the Liberty League. Hickey has a .897 save percentage in over 1,400 minutes between the posts.

Offensively, the Bombers have had 16 different goal scorers with Carrie Davis, Julia Cascone, Jayne Bogle, Kaelyn Fernandez, Rosie Bostian, Ally Stanton and Sarah Sinnott each netting two or more. Both Sarah Sinnott and Ally Stanton are tied for a team lead in points (10) as each have scored four goals, while also providing a pair of assists. Sinnott, a transfer from the University of Pittsburgh has also shown a flair for the dramatics netting three-game winning goals coming against York (9/3), Union (10/13) and Skidmore (10/14).

SCOUTING RIT:
The Tigers ended the regular season with two 0-0 ties coming against Ithaca and Vassar as those pair of ties secured them second place in the Liberty League standings, providing them a first round bye in the Liberty League Tournament.

RIT have tallied 24 goals on the year and allowed 14 as they have also outshot opponents 201-123. They have three double-digit point total scorers in Elena Ondera (five goals and three assists), Jessie Gomez (five goals and one assist) and Olivia Harris (three goals and five assists).

Ithaca outshot the Tigers 12-5 in their 0-0 draw on October 24 but both teams had trouble placing them on target with RIT forcing Grace Hickey into just two saves, while Emily Sanchez made one stop.

SCOUTING NO. 7 WILLIAM SMITH:
The Herons finished the 2023 regular season with a 11-0-4 record having outscored opponents 34-7 this season, but they have been susceptible to ties as three of them came during conference play. Similar to the Ithaca lineup, they are also very balanced with 11 different players having scored goals led by Ava Ruppersberger's six tallies. Another player to watch is graduate midfielder Katrine Berg who leads the team in assists and is second within the Liberty League with seven helpers.

William Smith came in at No. 7 in this week's United Soccer Coaches poll and have been ranked within the top-10 all season. The Herons haven't allowed a goal in their past eight matches, posting a 7-0-1 record during that run as the last goal scorer was Skidmore's Izzy Sullivan who helped her team to a 1-1 tie on September 23.
 
SCOUTING RPI:
The Engineers feature the Liberty League's top goal scorer in senior Gwen Barns who has netted eight goals this season. She has also dished out four assists, which is good for 20 points. Leading the defensive backline is Megan Wepner who has posted a .810 save percentage and a 1.08 goals-against average. The Engineers tied Ithaca 2-2 in the final game of the regular season and advanced to the semifinals after defeating No. 4 seeded Clarkson, 2-1 on Tuesday.

RPI scored first in the 16^th minute, but Clarkson evened things up in the 23rd minute, as Chloe Hodge scored an unassisted tally as she slipped it past Meagan Wampner to bring things back to a 1-1 score. It took another unassisted effort, this time coming from the boot of Brooke Miller in the 63^rd minute to power the engineers to Friday's semifinal matchup with William Smith.