Winning a conference championship is always an impressive accomplishment. But Saturday's first-place finish at the Empire 8 Championships by the women's cross country team was a particularly significant title for Bomber athletics.

Since the Empire 8's inception as an all-sports conference 10 years ago, Ithaca has now won an even 100 league titles. That's an incredible total -- 100 of the Empire 8's 190 championship trophies (53 percent!) have been brought back to Ithaca College. That percentage is even higher if you take out the nine men's golf titles (Ithaca sponsors 22 of the Empire 8's 23 championship sports with men's golf being the exception).

Here are some more facts and figures from Ithaca's decade of dominance:

* Ithaca has won at least one Empire 8 title in every sport.

* The Bombers have won at least five conference titles every year since 1999-2000 (including that first year, when there were the conference only awarded titles in 11 sports); no other school has ever won more than five in a single year.

* In each of the 10 years of Empire 8 sports, Ithaca has won at least 40 percent of the available hardware.

* Every one of Ithaca's 17 current head coaches (of Empire 8 sports) has won at least one title; so have four former Bomber coaches.

* Of those 100 titles, 28 have come by winning postseason championship tournaments.

* Three Ithaca teams have perfect records, winning every available Empire 8 title: women's swimming & diving (10), baseball (nine) and women's cross country (seven).

* The Bombers won 17 of the Empire 8's 21 championships in 2003-04; that's not just the best year Ithaca's had for winning conference titles, it's the best year anyone's had for winning conference titles. Ever. No school at any level of college athletics has ever won more conference titles in a single year.

How long will it take for the Bombers to get to championship #200? Well, 20 more titles up for grabs this year . . .
 

And don't think Ithaca's non-Empire 8 sports have been slacking off in that time -- in the past 10 years, Ithaca's recorded six top-five finishes at the National Collegiate Gymnastics Association championships, three top-10 showings at the NCAA Wrestling Championships and became the first program to win consecutive NCAA titles in women's crew.