LeiLanni Nesbeth and her Florida State University team-mates are through to today’s semi-finals of the ACC Tournament after extending their perfect record for the season to nine games with a quarter-final win over Notre Dame on Tuesday.

Florida State are unbeaten through their first nine games of the season for just the third time in their history. They dominated the first half against Notre Dame, outshooting their opponents with three shots on target before junior Jaelin Howell broke the deadlock in the 45th minute with her third goal of the season.

The goal came from a corner when Howell climbed above the Notre Dame defence to head the ball into the net after the Notre Dame goalkeeper fell down.

The second half was more of the same as FSU outshot Notre Dame 7-4. None of their first five shots were on target, before they finally had a shot on goal in the 78th minute when Clara Robbins found the back of the net from the edge of the box for her third goal of the season.

Nesbeth, the team’s joint top scorer with four goals, played 41 minutes after starting the match.

Today’s semi-finals in Cary, North Carolina will see Florida State taking on Duke at 5.30pm Bermuda time before North Carolina meet Virginia in the second semi-final at 8pm, a rematch of the 2019 ACC Tournament final.

The winners will meet in the championship final on Sunday starting at noon.

In Tuesday’s other quarter-final matches, Duke beat Clemson 1-0, North Carolina beat Virginia Tech 1-0 and Virginia defeated Louisville 4-1 with a hat-trick from Diana Ordoñez, only the fifth hat-trick in ACC Tournament history and the first since 2004.