The College of Staten Island women’s basketball squad will be looking to leave it all out on the court tonight, this time with a trip to the CUNYAC Championship at stake. The top-seeded Dolphins will be squaring off against No. 4 Hunter College as part of the CUNYAC/Con Edison Women’s Basketball Semifinals with a trip to the CUNYAC Final hanging in the balance. The game will be played at the Nat Holman Gymnasium on the campus of City College of New York at 6pm. Tickets to the game are FREE and can be secured via the CUNYAC website or by clicking here. If you cannot make the game tomorrow, CSI SportsNet will have you covered with its live webstream available atwww.csidolphins.com/live.  Michael Baybusky and Chris Soriano will be live courtside calling all of the action with the pregame show, beginning at 5:30pm.

To say that tonight’s semifinal would be an evenly-matched contest would be an understatement.  The series could not be tighter of late, as the two teams split their season series this year with both winning on the other’s court by three points, and the teams have split the last 12 meetings overall dating back to 2005…Despite their long history, this is only the  third-ever meeting between the two sides in the semifinal round of competition.  CSI won the other two meetings in 1984 (64-61) and 1996 (59-56).  CSI leads the all-time postseason series with Hunter, 8-5.

Both teams whizzed by their competition in the opening round of tournament play.  CSI shot better than 50% for the second straight outing in a 98-48 win over No. 8 York, while Hunter left little to doubt in an 84-59 win over No. 5 Lehman College.  In the other semifinal toight, slated for 8pm, #2 Baruch College will face off against No. 3 Brooklyn College.  The two semifinal winners will meet on Friday for the CUNYAC Championship at 6pm, also at CCNY.

Tonight, CSI is playing off of their home floor for the first time since February 8, when they defeated John Jay College.  That may be good news for the Dolphins who boast a better away record (11-2) than home standing (9-4).  In fact, CSI has won their last seven road contests, their last loss on the road coming on December 29 against NCAA Division I Army.

CSI Senior Melanie Johnson took home CUNYAC MVP honors last week, becoming the first MVP honoree from CSI since Jacclyn Rock in 2005.  Johnson is averaging 17.1 points per game, and her 427 markers are the 18th-highest all-time within a single season at CSI…Sophomore Megan Myhre needs just 19 more points to score 400 this season, which would make her only the 22nd player to achieve the honor in a season.  It would also be the 9th time in CSI history where the Dolphins would have two 400-point scorers in the same season.

CSI is 10-0 when winning the battle on the boards, something they haven’t done in the last seven games.  The last time CSI out-rebounded their opponents was at CCNY, a January 29 meeting with the Beavers, a 47-31 win.  CSI’s 53.7% shooting on Sunday was their second-highest mark, and over the last two games the Dolphins are shooting 52% from the field and 50% from beyond the arc (26-52).  The Dolphins are 10-1 when shooting better than 35% from beyond the curve.  In their regular season win over Hunter, CSI shot 36% from three-point range.  In their loss, they shot just 26% (6-23).