When the Hamilton College women’s hockey team plays in the NCAA Division III championship semifinals against the Amherst College Mammoths at Amherst at 7 p.m. on Friday, it will be the furthest any Hamilton team has advanced in the NCAA championship since women’s lacrosse reached the 2010 national final, according to the school.

These New England Small College Athletic Conference rivals have already played each other three times this season, including a 5-0 win by the Mammoths in the league championship game less than two weeks ago.

The Continentals enter the game at 22-5-2 with a 12-3-1 league record.

Amherst is 25-3-0 (13-3 in the league).

Hamilton is ranked sixth by USCHO.com in the March 6 Top 15 poll and fifth according to Pairwise on March 5. Amherst is third in the USCHO.com poll and was the top team for Pairwise.

To get to the semifinals, Hamilton has defeated Nazareth 3-1 and then Adrian 2-0 in the program’s first appearance in the NCAA championship. Amherst had a first round bye then shut out Colby 4-0.

Amherst averages almost a goal per game more than Hamilton — 3.5 to 2.7. The teams have virtually identical power play conversion percentages — 22.8% for Amherst and 22.2% for Hamilton. Amherst is slightly better at killing off penalties, allowing four power-play goals in 47 chances (91.5%) to Hamilton’s 87.9% (seven goals in 58 chances).

Hamilton is the only team that has a win at Amherst this season, 2-0 on Nov. 19, 2022.

Leading the way for Hamilton on offense is senior Nancy Loh, a Fayetteville-Manlius grad, who has 21 goals and six assists for 27 points. Hyla Mosher has eight goals and 15 assists. Conference Player of the Year and Division III player of the year finalist Abby Kuhns has seven goals and 15 assists. Abby Smith has 10 goals and 10 helpers.

Hamilton freshman netminder Evie Sheridan comes into the game fresh off the shutout of Adrian and with one goal allowed so far in the NCAAs. She is 15-4-1 this season with a 1.43 goals-against-average and a .940 save percentage with five shutouts.

Amherst goalie Natalie Stott also had a shutout in her last game. The conference’s rookie of the year is 24-3 with 13 shutouts this season, a 0.97 GAA and .952 save percentage.

The Mammoths have shut out their opponent in six of the last seven games, including all four postseason contests.

Offensively for the Mammoths, Rylee Glennon leads the team with 30 points (13 goals and 17 assists). Also with 13 goals each are Maeve Reynolds and Kate Pohl.

McNamara coach of the year nominee

Hamilton College head xoach Emily McNamara is a finalists for the 2022-23 AHCA Division III Women’s Hockey College Division Coach of the Year Award.

McNamara is one of 10 finalists. The finalists must either be named coach of the year at the conference level or advance to the NCAA championship semifinals.

She was voted the NESCAC Coach of the Year as she has guided the Continentals to a team-record 22 games (previous record was 16), recorded their highest finish in the NESCAC standings at second place and advanced to the conference championship final for the first time.

The award winners were to be announced on Thursday. That includes Division III player of the year, which includes finalist Abby Kuhns of Hamilton College as well.