ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Cornell men's polo team made sure of making Saturday afternoon at Oxley Equestrian Center a Big Red-Virginia doubleheader by winning its national semifinal match over No. 3 seed Colorado State 22-18 on Thursday afternoon. The Big Red improved to 15-5 on the season and booked a date with the top-seeded Cavaliers on Saturday afternoon at 3:30 p.m., immediately following Cornell against Virginia at 1:30 p.m. in the women's national final.

Cornell tallied the first two goals, but CSU responded with the next 3 to lead 3-2 after one. The Rams extended the lead to 4-2 only to have the Big Red fight back to lead 5-4. The teams traded leads the rest of the half and went into the break leading 7-6. The third chukker saw the same back and forth with four more ties before Cornell ran off three straight goals to get to end with a 15-11 edge. CSU was not done though, as they came back in the fourth to within 1 at 15-14. Max Constant put the game on ice with four straight scores to make it 19-14, and the Rams wouldn't get any closer than four as the home team went on for the 22-18 win. Constant  ended the game with 12 goals, Branden Van Loon had 7 and Connor Pardell tallied one, while there were also two penalty goals.

Cornell will have to find a way to slow down the Cavaliers, who knocked off Connecticut 32-5 in the earlier semifinal. The Big Red dropped a pair of regular season games to UVa - a 17-16 defeat in Charlottesville on Nov. 13, 2010, before losing in the final of the William Field Invitational to Virginia 19-10 just 12 days later.