Men's Lacrosse | 5/1/2018 11:13:00 AM

Game Program | Live Video (RPI TV) | Live Stats

GAMEDAY (May 2, 2018): The No. 19 Engineers (12-3; 6-2 Liberty League) host No. 15 Ithaca College (14-2; 6-2 Liberty League) in a Liberty League Tournament Semifinals contest at East Campus Stadium ... RPI is the second seed and the Bombers are the third seed.

UP NEXT: The winner of this game advances to the Liberty League Tournament Championship Game on Saturday against either top-seeded RIT or fourth-seeded St. Lawrence ... The highest remaining seed hosts and the winner of the game earns an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament.

HOW THEY GOT HERE: Both RIT, the top-ranked team in Division III, and RPI earned first round byes, while Ithaca defeated sixth-seeded Clarkson, 12-7, and St. Lawrence, which is ranked 18th, took down fifth-seeded Union, 14-6, in the Quarterfinals.

MARCH 24 REMATCH: Four Engineers notched hat tricks and three others had multiple-point games to help fuel a 16-7 victory for Rensselaer over Ithaca ... JT Kelly led the way, scoring three with three assists ... Matthew Gilman scored four times with one assist and Cliff Kigar scored three goals with an assist ... Freshman Jason Bram scored three goals on a game-high 10 shots ... Oliver Kaija grabbed seven ground balls and defenseman Keaton Ackermann caused six turnovers ... Parker Smith stopped nine shots in the win ... Ithaca had eight different point-producers, led by Stephen Morell, who notched a goal and an assist ... Winston Wenham and Sean Seaberg each had six ground balls ... Robby Atwood had nine saves.

TEAM STATS: While the faceoff battle was nearly even at 14-13 for Ithaca, Rensselaer held the advantage in most of the other areas, including shots (43-26), ground balls 42-34) and extra-man opportunities, going 1-for-3 ... Ithaca did not have an EMO.

SCORE BY QUARTERS:
Ithaca 5 - 0 - 0 - 2 -- 7
Rensselaer 4 - 3 - 4 - 5 -- 16

COMMON DEFEAT: Both RPI (18-11) and Ithaca (19-9) lost to RIT in league play.

STRONG CONFERENCE: For the fifth consecutive week, the Engineers are ranked in the USILA Division III Coaches Poll, coming in at No. 19 ... RPI is one of four conference schools listed, including the Bombers, who are 15th ... RIT is No. 1 and St. Lawrence is No. 18.

ALL-TIME VS. ITHACA: The Engineers are 8-26 all-time against the Bombers, including 6-11 in Troy ... The two schools were previously league foes in the ICAC with Ithaca holding a 20-3 margin in those conference contests.

LAST SEASON: In its home debut, fourth-ranked Ithaca scored the final six goals to pull away from 12th-ranked Rensselaer for a non-conference win, 14-9 ... Jack Shumway netted six points, finding the back of the net five times and adding an assist ... Josh Della Puca added two goals and three assists, while Jake Cotton finished with three assists in addition to a goal ... Jack Deragon registered 11 saves, which included eight in the second half ... Ithaca shut out the Engineers over the final 20:27 of game action ... Breanainn McNeally scored three times with two assists and Lucas Bastarache tallied twice with a helper for RPI, which got 18 saves from David Gibbs.

LUCKY 13: Rensselaer is trying to win at least 13 games for the second time in the last three years ... RPI was 13-5 in 2016 ... The 1948 team also had 13 wins (13-0) ... The school record for wins is 14, which was established in 2010 (14-3).

RPI'S CAPTAINS: The 2018 Engineers are being led by senior captains Matthew Gilman, Oliver Kaija and Zach Lukas ... This is the first season as a captain for Gilman and Lukas and the second for Kaija.

ROSTER BREAKDOWN: Rensselaer's roster features eight seniors, 14 juniors, seven sophomores and 15 freshmen.