There may be no I in team, but there’s an I in win. Columbia athletes had outstanding individual performances this weekend, helping their respective teams to big wins in meets, matches, and championships. Men’s and Women’s Swimming & Diving, Wrestling, and Men’s Tennis all picked up W’s this weekend, and the Women’s Track & Field team took the top spot at the Metropolitan Indoor Track & Field Championships for the first time in team history. Read on for more sports news and knowledge in the weekly round-up. 

Tennis:

Latest Result: The Men’s Tennis team sweeps Fordham in opening dual match, 7-0

Overview: The Lions kicked off the 2012 season with an emphatic performance on Saturday, dropping only one set on the day against local rival, Fordham. There were a number of quick matches as the Lions cruised to victory on opening day. Freshman Bret Vancura stunned Fordham’s player in the No. 5 singles, winning 6-0, 6-0, and fellow freshman Winston Lin took down his opponent in the No. 2 singles, 6-1, 6-2. The closest match of the day came in the singles top spot. After dropping the second set, 2-6, senior Haig Schneiderman fell behind in the third, but broke back to close out the hard-fought match, 7-5, 2-6, 7-5.

Upcoming Contest: The Lions take on Cleveland State on Friday at 2 p.m, while the Women’s team opens their dual match season on Friday as the face Hofstra on the road.

In other tennis news, World No. 1 Novak Djokovic defeated Rafael Nadal in the Australian Open this weekend, 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, 6-7, 7-5. In the Women’s singles, Victoria Azarenka took the title over Maria Sharapova, 6-3, 6-0. To add salt to the wound, check out Djokovic’s impersonation of Open losers Sharapova and Nadal.

Read more…

In the final weekend of athletic contests before a break for finals and the holidays, the Men’s Basketball team extended their winning streak to seven after beating LIU on Saturday. A streak of seven straight is nice for more than just alliteration, it prepares the Lions for tough Ivy League contests in the new year. The Lions also saw success in the pool this weekend, with the Women’s Swimming & Diving team breaking five Uris Pool records. Bwog hopes all the athletes enjoy this short break in action, giving them the chance to focus on that student part of being a student-athlete. Bwog’s chief sports enthusiast, Kevin Powers, reports.

generic lion picture

Men’s Basketball (7-4)

Latest Result: Lions win their seventh straight against Long Island University 63-53.

Highlights: Coming off of six straight wins and a stellar performance in LA, the Lions entered Saturday’s game against LIU with confidence. The game was slow to start but picked up quickly with the Blackbirds taking the lead for much of the first half. With eight minutes remaining in the half, LIU led by six, but the Lions rallied with a 12-1 run before the break. In the second half, the Lions extended their lead to 38-27 with 15 minutes remaining, causing the Blackbirds to pick up the defensive pressure with a full court trap. LIU was able to cut their deficit to four with 12 minutes left on the clock, but that would be the closest they would come. The Lions found success from behind the arc late in the half, sinking a number of three pointers to put them up by ten. Though strong defense was key throughout the game, John Daniels’ emphatic dunk with just over a minute remaining was the was the highlight of this hard fought contest. Daniels, along with Mark Cisco, tallied 12 points in the win, and the Lions collectively forced 23 LIU turnovers.

Upcoming Contest: The Lions take a much needed 18-day break for finals and the holidays, returning to action on 12/28 against Marist.

Women’s Basketball (1-9)

Latest Result: Women’s Basketball loses their fourth straight against LIU 50-58.

Highlights: The Lady Lions also faced LIU this weekend after a series of disappointing losses. The Lions fell behind early in the first has as the Blackbirds went on a 9-0 run to put them up 16-8, extending the lead to twelve with 10 minutes remaining. LIU continued their offensive success in the first half, entering the break ahead 38-23. In the second half, the Lions rallied quickly, cutting the deficit to eight midway through the half. The Lions picked up the defensive pressure as well, holding the Blackbirds scoreless in most of the half and allowing a 15-0 run by Columbia. Taylor Ward capped the run with a three pointer to claim the first lead of the game for the Lions, 39-38 with 9:31 left on the clock. The Blackbirds rallied, however, in the final minutes, pulling ahead to claim the win 58-50. Taylor Ward and Melissa Shafer led the Lions with 10 points a piece as the Lions fall to 1-9 on the season.

Read more…

At last night’s town hall meeting, student groups elected the ABC Board for the coming year. They elected a new exec board last week. Congratulations to the winners! Speaking of the winners, here they are:

• Renuka Agarwal: CC 2012
• Elizabeth Angeles: CC 2013
• Ryan Cho: CC 2013
• Max Hartman: GS 2013
• Saketh Kalathur: CC 2013
• Nikhil Krishnan: CC 2014
• Nick Miyares: CC 2012
• Tim Qin: SEAS 2013
• Julian Richardson: CC 2014
• ChiChi Udochi: CC 2013
• Ben Xue: CC 2014
• Rui Yu: CC 2014
• Kevin Zhai: CC 2012

-The Uptown Local Team

Columbia’s Ultimate Frisbee (the sport is also called Ultimate) team Uptown Local gained some national cred this past weekend, finishing an impressive fourth in regional competition.

The team‘s meteoric rise began the weekend of April 18th when they surprised the competition in Sectionals. Though the team was the 8th seed out of 15 competitors, they won six straight games, losing to first-place Vassar by only two points. But if you think about it, Ultimate Frisbee must be to hippie Vassar kids what cynicism is to Columbians, so it was an understandable loss. Rebounding from the Vassar game, the Columbia team beat the College of New Jersey, which, as our governor knows, loses because its in New Jersey, to place second. Vassar and Columbia then headed to Regionals, beating out NYU and Princeton, which aside from outdoing Yale, are the best things a Columbia team can do. Read more…

Paul Sonne, Editor in Chief of CPR and Rhodes finalist, almost ended Columbia’s six year losing streak on the Rhodes scholarship this year, (even NYU and Duke scored awards—as if basketball and US News rankings weren’t enough). Luckily, he had already landed the Marshall and its free ride to Oxford, where he’ll be getting a Master of Philosophy in Russian and Eastern European studies. Bwog interrupted his celebrations to ask him how the whole thing works.

What did you first do when you heard about the Marshall?

I kind of flipped out, and called my parents. They were obviously thrilled, not only because I won, but because they won’t have to pay for me for the next two years.

What were the application processes like?

They’re really, really intense. There’s just a lot of recommendations, a lot of thinking and reflecting about yourself. We’re at a point in our lives where I think very few of us know what we’re going to do, and to be able to sell yourself as going to be x or going to be y is very tough. But it was actually really not as painful as I thought it was going to be.

What was it like competing with some of the top students in the country?

Everyone was so fascinating, and I felt like to have gotten this far, no one was faking it, it wasn’t like people had been spending their entire lives to win these awards. These are kids who are really dedicated to what they were doing, and whether or not they ended up winning the award, they were going to be successful. Read more…