BRONX, N.Y. – Fresh off a dominant quarterfinal win over Duquesne this past weekend in Pittsburgh, Fordham will return to action on Wednesday evening in Dayton when it travels to take on the red-hot Flyers in the semifinals of the Atlantic 10 Men's Soccer Championship.
 
Kick-off from Baujan Field is set for 7 p.m. on ESPN+.  The winner of Wednesday's contest between the fifth-seeded Rams and second-seeded Flyers will advance to Sunday's championship match to face the winner of the other semifinal between top-seeded George Mason and sixth-seeded Saint Louis. 
 
Fordham will make its 11^th appearance all-time in the semifinal round of the Atlantic 10 Men's Soccer Championship.  Eight of those semifinal berths have come in the past 11 seasons.  After winning on Saturday night in Pittsburgh, Fordham is now 13-9-4 all-time in the Atlantic 10 Championship, including a record of 4-4-2 in the semifinal round.  The Rams' last semifinal appearance came in the fall of 2021, when they played Saint Louis to a scoreless draw before the Billikens advanced in penalty kicks.
 
Fordham owns a 5-2-0 record in A-10 Tournament games played in Dayton, including a pair of wins on the way to the 2020-21 Atlantic 10 Championship.  Matt Sloan, now an assistant coach at his alma mater, took home that tournament's Most Outstanding Player honors after scoring in both of Fordham's victories.
 
Daniel D'Ippolito was the star of Saturday night's win over the Dukes, scoring three times in the second half of the Rams' 3-0 win.  Having already registered a hat trick earlier in the year against Santa Clara, D'Ippolito became just the fourth player in program history and the first in more than four decades to recorded two hat tricks in the same season, as John Shannon last accomplished the feat in 1982.  For his efforts, he was rewarded with a spot on Tuesday's TopDrawerSoccer Team of the Week.
 
 On the season, D'Ippolito now has 13 goals and seven assists, the former of which is the highest single-season total by a Fordham player since John Wolyniec scored a school-record 25 times during the 1998 season.  D'Ippolito's 13 goals are tied for 10^th on the school's single-season record list.
 
Nationally, D'Ippolito's 33 points are tied for third among all Division I players while his 13 goals are tied for seventh.  His seven assists also crack the top 50, as he sits tied for 41^st in that category.
 
Luca Bernoth, Luke Pompliano, Bennett Leitner and Kamran Mojabi recorded assists in the Rams' quarterfinal win at Duquesne. 
 
Carter Abbott recorded his fourth solo shutout of the campaign on Saturday night, stopping all three shots on goal that he faced.  On the season, Abbott now boasts a 1.04 goals against average and a .754 save percentage, good enough for fifth and fourth, respectively, in the conference.
 
Fordham and Dayton will meet for the second time this season on Wednesday night.  The Rams handed Dayton (11-2-3) one of its two regular season losses, taking down the Flyers, 4-2, on Oct. 12.  Since then, Dayton is 5-0-0 with a win over then-No. 1 West Virginia as has risen to no. 5 in the latest United Soccer Coaches poll released on Nov. 5.
 
Four different Flyers have scored at least seven times this season.  Martin Bakken and Andrew Armstrong have eight goals apiece while Joseph Melto Quiah and Hjalti Sigurdsson each have seven.  Dayton's 2.88 goals per game are good enough for second in the nation in that category.
 
Fordham's four goals on Oct. 12 are the most tallied by a Dayton opponent this season and account for 22 percent of the Flyers' total goals surrendered this season.  D'Ippolito notched a goal and two assists in the win.  Thomas Gray had a goal and an assist while Leitner and Ede Gramberg also found the back of the net during that contest.