Katie Meili CC’13 made Ivies her bitch

The Lions racked up some serious hardware this week as the winter season comes to a close. Breaststroker and overall swimming machine Katie Meili walked away from the Women’s Swimming and Diving Ivy League Championships this weekend with three individual titles, three pool records, three school records, two Ivy League records, the Swimmer of the Meet title for the second straight year, and the Career High Point Swimmer title. In her best race, the 100 breaststroke, Meili broke her own Ivy League record in prelims and then broke it again that night in finals, with her closest adversary almost two body lengths back. Another outstanding performance came from junior Alena Kluge, who dropped seven seconds off her personal best time in the 400 IM to claim the Ivy League title in the event, before going on to break the school record in the 200 backstroke the next day. The Lions finished the weekend third overall with the highest point total in school history, and the Lady Lions weren’t the only ones cleaning up at Ivy League Championships this weekend. Both Men’s and Women’s Fencing finished 2nd overall this weekend at the Ivy League Championships and now have their sights set on NCAA Northeast Regionals.

Outside of the championship competitions, the accolades kept coming in for Columbia’s standout athletes. Baseballinsider.com has some nice things to say about the Baseball team before they opened their season this weekend, calling senior Nick Ferraresi the Ivy League’s “most underrated hitter.” Ferraresi is also a candidate for the Senior CLASS award, given to an NCAA Division I baseball player who has an affinity for c-words like community, classroom, character, and competition. Junior sprinter Marvellous Iheukwumere led the way in Track & Field All-Ivy selections with two first-team nods in the 200m dash and 600m dash. Nine other Track & Field athletes also made All-Ivy selections. In other T&F news, Mark Feigen broke the 3000m school record on Saturday, coming in at 8:04, and Trina Bills took down the 800m school record with her time of 2:07.59. In Wrestling, seniors Steve Santos and Steve West shared a name and a place on first-team All-Ivy League, joined by two other Lions wrestlers who received second-team honors. Women’s Basketball beat Brown for the second time this season, with a little help from Tyler Simpson, who posted 26 points. Men’s Basketball took down Yale on Saturday before a heartbreaking buzzer beater loss to Brown on Saturday in the final home game of the season. Lacrosse also had a heartbreaking weekend, falling in double overtime to Brown in their Ivy League opener. The Lions were on their way up and making history in the rankings this week. Women’s Tennis broke into the top 50 in the ITA rankings for the first time in program history after taking down ranked opponents like No. 42 Kansas State, while the Men’s Tennis team cruised to a No. 33 national ranking after crushing Binghamton last weekend.

All the results from the week after the jump!

Men’s Basketball (12-14, 4-8 Ivy League):

Results:

Yale 59-46 (W)

Brown 58-61 (L)

Up Next:  Two road games to finish off the season. First at Harvard at 7pm on Friday and then Dartmouth at 7pm on Saturday.

Women’s Basketball (4-21, 2-9 Ivy League):

Results:

Yale 49-66 (L)

Brown 58-55 (W)

Up Next:  Final home games of the season against Harvard on Friday at 7 pm in Levien and then against Dartmouth of Saturday – same time, same place.

Baseball (0-4):

Results:

Lamar 1-5 (L)

Lamar 5-7 (L)

Lamar 5-9 (L)

Lamar 0-6 (L)

Up Next: A trip to Tuscon for three games against Arizona

Softball (1-4):

Results:

Townson Invitational 

Iona 0-1 (L)

Lehigh 4-5 (L)

Lehigh 2-3 (L)

Iona 2-1 (W)

Townson 0-3 (L)

Up Next:  Doubleheader at Rider on Saturday at 1pm and then 3pm

Women’s Swimming & Diving (8-2, 5-2 Ivy League):

Results: 

Ivy League Championships

3rd Place Overall

Fencing: 

Results:

Ivy League Round-Robins

Men’s team, 2nd Place

Women’s team, 2nd Place

Up Next: NCAA Northeast Regionals at St. John’s at 10 am on Sunday.

Squash:

Results:

College Squash Association Individual Nationals

Tony Zhou, Runner-up, Consolations

Women’s Tennis (5-3) 

Results:

 Stony Brook 6-1 (W)

Up Next: Local rival Fordham at 3pm at Dick Savitt Tennis Center

Men’s Tennis (4-2):

Results:

George Washington 4-3 (W)

Up Next: St. John’s on Friday at 2pm at Dick Savitt Tennis Center

Lacrosse (1-2, 0-1 Ivy League):

Results:

Lafayette 9-16 (L)

Brown 10-11 (L) 2OT

Up Next: Ivy League home opener against Cornell. 1pm at Robert K. Kraft Field on Saturday.

Swimming Sensation via Columbia Athletics