The women’s basketball team could not have finished its regular season any better. The team honored seniors Megan Rumschik and Tracy Bradley before finishing the afternoon by dominating Rochester Institute of Technology.

For Bradley, the thought of being on top of the Empire 8 with a 13–3 conference record and finishing the regular season with the victory against Rochester put her at a loss for words.

“I can’t even explain it,” she said. “I couldn’t have pictured my senior game going any better.”

From the veterans to the rookies, this win meant a great deal in solidifying Ithaca’s conference season.

“It feels awesome,” freshman Jessica Farley said. “I’m really proud of us and happy because we will have the home fans there supporting us.”

In less than a week, those feelings of happiness and relief that filled the air in Ben Light Gymnasium will be replaced by the intensity and tension of both the women’s and men’s Empire 8 Conference Championship.

The Bomber women have not hosted the tournament since the 2004-05 season, but they have appeared in every tournament since. In preseason, the Bombers made hosting the tournament the first goal on their list.

Hosting gives the team the advantage of bigger crowds and the luxury of not traveling. With the men’s team also in town, the atmosphere will bring February madness to Ithaca, N.Y. The Bombers still need to get the job done though, as they have not been able to advance in recent years.

In 2008, the Blue and Gold went on the road to Hoboken, N.J., and were unable to make it out of the first round, losing to Utica College. This time though, the Bombers are going in with both momentum and health on their side. Bradley said they go hand in hand in making a big difference in the postseason.

“Last year we had a couple last-minute injuries, but this year everybody on the team is 100 percent, so we have good momentum going into the game,” she said.

The experience of playing in the 2008 game will help as well, as even the younger players have had a little taste of playoff basketball.

“It’s not a new thing anymore,” sophomore forward Elissa Klie said. “We know it is a totally different atmosphere.”

The Bombers will need to have all of those factors on their side, as their first-round foe is St. John Fisher College. At 9–7 in the Empire 8, the Cardinals were the only team that Ithaca lost to twice this season, both with a double-digit margin of victory. They were also the only team to beat the Bombers at home the entire year.

For the athletes though, the playoffs mark a new season, with all the records reset to 0–0.

“We just need to forget the last two times we played Fisher,” Bradley said. “We know what hasn’t worked, and we will fix it and take it from there.”

If they are able to repair their mistakes against St. John Fisher and win on Friday, the Blue and Gold will play the winner of the game between Utica College and Stevens Institute of Technology in the championship game Saturday.

Ithaca narrowly beat Stevens twice, 49–47 in the first match and 61–60 in the second. The team went 1–1 against Utica.

In the Empire 8 this year, all of the top four teams have proven they can make noise in the postseason. Starting with the Fisher game, Ithaca wants to show the conference and the NCAA why it deserves its No. 1 seed. Revenge is the word being used in the squad’s conversations, and for Rumschik, this is the No. 1 goal.

“I’ve never been more pumped for a game, ever,” she said. “This time we know it is do or die.”