MIDDLEBURY, Vt. – Emily Fluke scored two goals for the Middlebury women's ice hockey team to lead the top-seeded Panthers to a 4-2 NESCAC Semifinal win Saturday over #5 seed Bowdoin inside Chip Kenyon Arena. 

Third-ranked Middlebury (20-3-3), who advances to Sunday's championship game at 2:00 p.m., will play the winner of #2 seed Amherst and #3 seed Trinity in a game to be played later today. Bowdoin ends its season at 11-10-5 after advancing to its sixth consecutive semifinal.

In the first period off a faceoff with 8:20 left, Katie Mandigo looked to put the hosts on the board. She laced a lefthanded shot that Bowdoin goalie Lan Crofton slid to her right and kicked away with her pad. A little more than eight minutes later at 16:33 with Middlebury on the powerplay, Hannah Bielawski ripped a shot from the right point that found the back of the net on stick-to-stick passes across the blue line from Carly Watson and Jessica Young.

At 4:15 of the middle period, Fluke doubled the Panther lead. Janka Hlinka won the puck behind the Polar Bear goal, fed a pass to Young who flew by her. Young centered a pass on the doorstep to Fluke, who one-timed the puck into the upper portion of the net. For the period, the Panthers held a 12-4 edge in shots on goal.

In the third period, the teams traded goals with Middlebury scoring first and Bowdoin quickly answering. Elizabeth Wulf put the Panthers ahead by a 3-0 count at 5:54 with a quick wrister from just inside the right dot. Just 27 seconds later, Bowdoin cut the deficit to 3-1 when Colleen Finnerty collected a rebound on the doorstep and scored off a shot from the left side by Schuyler Nardelli. At the 9:01 mark of the period, Fluke scored her second of the game. Carly Watson laced a shot from the left point that was saved. Crofton was unsure where the puck ended up on the rebound, and Fluke pounced on it and tapped it in. A little under a minute later, Bowdoin's Miranda Bell scored the Polar Bears' second tally of the game when she jumped on a rebound following a shot in transition from Chelsea MacNeil. 

With both sides trading scoring chances in the final minutes, Bowdoin pulled Crofton with 1:42 remaining but weren't able to pull any closer as the hosts advanced to Sunday's championship game for the 10th time in conference tournament history. For the contest, Middlebury held a 29-21 advantage in shots as Madeline Marsh tallied 19 saves for the win, while Crofton was credited with 25 stops.