Voting continues to impress as 1,241 votes were cast in the Semi-Final Round of the #BeaconAOTY (athlete of the year) tournament. That additional tally bring the tournament total to 18,545.

Today’s Championship Round will begin at 11 a.m. and continue until 11 p.m. Once the final day of the tournament concludes, Wilkes University will have two new champions as #BeaconAOTY title winners. Both champions will be featured in a full page spread in the final edition of The Beacon on Tuesday, the final edition of The Beacon for the school year.

For the women, Dual-sport athlete and Marywood senior transfer No. 1 Gabrielle Giordano (women’s basketball and softball) continued her impressive showing by winning over No. 21 Allyson Joly (women’s ice hockey and women’s lacrosse) by 16 percentage points.

Teammate No. 14 Maddie Kelley (women’s basketball and field hockey) will join Giordano in the Championship Round after she won in rout fashion over No. 18 Ashley Burkhardt (women’s lacrosse).

After today’s action, women’s basketball is now guaranteed a piece of a championship. Either field hockey or softball will join women’s basketball depending on if Giordano or Kelley wins.

On the men’s side, No. 7 Jeff Steeber (football) will take on No. 5 Nick Racanelli (wrestling).

Steeber comes after defeating No. 3 Courtney Murphy (men’s tennis) in the tightest contest of the Semi-Final Round, Steeber winning by just four percentage points.

On the flip side, Racanelli secured the largest margin of victory by defeating teammate No. 24 Ashton Gyenizs by 28 percentage points. It is the third time in four tries that Racanelli has secured more than 60 percent of the vote in a matchup. Racanelli has also knocked out fellow teammates in back-to-back rounds of the tournament.

The updated bracket with Semi-Final Round pairings is available here: 2018-19 #BeaconAOTY Bracket

The field was announced on Sunday in a selection show posted to “Wilkes Now” on YouTube.

Tournament Schedule:

• Championship Round: Today

• All polls conducted using the @WilkesBeacon Twitter page.
• Polls will begin each day at 11:00 a.m. and will conclude at 11:00 p.m.

For coverage of the tournament, check out the following Twitter accounts:

• Luke Modrovsky, editor-in-chief — @LukeModrovsky
• Ben Mandell, co-sports editor — @BenMandell55
• Kirsten Peters, co-sports editor — @kirstenpetersss
• James Dotter, Wilkes Now production assistant — @James_Dotter

Additional coverage will be provided through media partner 90.7 WCLH — Wilkes University radio on Facebook through @WCLH_radio and @WCLHsports on Twitter and Instagram.