Thursday’s Semifinal Card: Patriot League, Centennial, NEWMAC and ODAC All Play for a Final
Thursday is semifinal day across four conferences, and every one of them has a final on the line. Here’s the card.
The Patriot League semifinals are at Easton. Lafayette meet Holy Cross at 12pm ET, and American face Boston University at 3pm ET, with the final on Saturday 7 November. Lafayette are the hosts and the top seed, but a semifinal is a semifinal, and Holy Cross have nothing to lose.
The Centennial semifinals are split across two venues on Thursday night. Franklin & Marshall, fresh from their 2-1 first-round win over Haverford, travel to top-seeded No. 9 Johns Hopkins. Ursinus, who beat Dickinson 3-1 on Tuesday, go to Swarthmore for a 7pm start. The Diplomats have reached the Centennial semifinals five years running, so this stage holds no fear for them. Ursinus will be thinking about revenge too: they lost a first-round game to Dickinson last season, and they made sure that didn’t happen again.
In the NEWMAC, Smith travel to top seed MIT at 6pm on Thursday. Smith’s 2-1 win over WPI was their first postseason win since 2022, and they did it with a 58th-minute winner from Anouk Bosket. MIT are the top seed for a reason, but Smith are playing with house money now, and teams playing with house money are dangerous.
And in the ODAC, Randolph-Macon travel to second-seeded No. 19 Washington and Lee on Thursday, time still to be announced. The Yellowjackets beat Bridgewater 2-0 on Tuesday for their fourth straight shutout, and they’ve now beaten Bridgewater five times in a row. A defence that hasn’t conceded in four games is a serious weapon to take on the road.
Four conferences, four finals up for grabs, all on one night. Friday’s finals will sort out who actually took their chance.
