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Victory!
Well, just to the NCAA’s for now. A number of Lions will represent Columbia in upcoming NCAA Championship competition after stellar performances over the last few weeks. Wrestling made program history at the 2013 EIWA Championships this weekend with five placewinners and four automatic bids to the NCAA Championships. Senior Steve Santos claimed the EIWA title in the 149-pound weight class and will be joined by Matt Bystol (133 pounds), Josh Houldsworth (165 pounds), and Jake O’Hara (157 pounds) at NCAA’s. Katie Meili and Alena Kluge will represent Columbia at the NCAA Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships in two weeks. Meili posted qualifying times in 100 breast, 200 breast, and 200 IM, while Kluge will make her debut at NCAA’s in the 400 IM. Men’s Swimming & Diving took third place overall in the Ivy League Championships at Brown this weekend for the fourth straight year, and earned the most points in school history. The Lions broke five pool records en route to the top three finish, including the 200 freestyle, which was broken by Sophomore Dominik Koll in his 2nd place finish at Ivies. Fencing is competing in NCAA regionals all day today and are like to send reps to nationals as well.
In other Columbia Athletics news, Women’s Basketball took down Dartmouth, 48-39, on Saturday in the final home game of the season and the last game ever in Levien for the team’s five seniors. Men’s Basketball, however, dropped their final two game of the season this weekend on the road to Harvard and Dartmouth, finishing last in the Ivy League with a 4-10 conference record this season. On a trip to Arizona this weekend, Baseball faced defending national champions, Arizona, in three games, making it the first time in program history Columbia has gone up against a national championship team. After dropping the first game of the doubleheader Saturday afternoon, the Lions came back Saturday night, scoring five runs in the seventh inning to propel them past the defending champs and to a 8-4 victory. Back on the east coast, a three-run homer from freshman Macy Shrum helped Softball to a 7-6 victory over Rider in their first game of a Sunday doubleheader. Lacrosse fell in their Ivy League home opener yesterday to Cornell, 7-14, despite junior Paige Cuscovitch’s hat trick. Also at home this weekend was Women’s Tennis, who remained undefeated at home after a brutal 6-1 beating of local rival Fordham. At the National Indoor Championships for Archery, freshman Tiffany Kim led the Lions with a third place showing in the recurve, which was the third highest individual score in the nation. And outside of competition, the Men’s Soccer team participated in Cycle for Survival, an organization that raises money for rare cancer research, in an off-season fundraising activity.
Men’s Basketball (12-16, 4-10 Ivy League):
Results:
Women’s Basketball (5-22, 3-10 Ivy League):
Results:
Up Next: Road game Harvard at 6pm on Tuesday to finish off the season
Baseball (1-5):
Results:
Arizona (score not available at time of post)
Up Next: Another trip, this time to Florida. The Baseball boys will take on UCF and Miami.
Softball (1-4):
Results:
Rider (score not available at time of post)
Up Next: The Softball ladies will also head to Florida for spring break where they will compete in the Rebel Spring Games. Opponents include Lehigh, Wagner, Utah Valley State, St. Peter’s, Rider, Green Bay, and Manhattan.
Women’s Swimming & Diving (8-2, 5-2 Ivy League):
*Six Lions received All-Ivy League honors this week. First Team All-Ivy: Katie Meili (1oo breaststroke, 200 breaststroke, 200 IM, 400 medley relay), Alena Kluge (400 IM, 400 medley relay), Kristina Parsons (400 medley relay), Selena Huang (400 medley relay). Second Team All-Ivy: Mikaila Gaffey (100 breaststroke, 200 medley relay), Alena Kluge (200 IM, 2oo medley relay), Christina Ray (200 medley relay), Katie Meili (200 medley relay)
Men’s Swimming & Diving (8-2, 5-2 Ivy League):
Results:
3rd Place Overall at the Ivy League Championships
Wrestling (6-8, 2-3 Ivy League, 3-5 EIWA):
Results:
8th Place Overall at the EIWA Championships
Up Next: NCAA’s in two weeks in Iowa for the four Lions that qualified.
Fencing:
Up Next: NCAA regionals all day today!
*First Team (men): Alen Hadzic (epee), Brian Ro (epee), Will Spear (sabre)
First Team (women): Jackie Dubrovich (foil), Lydia Kopecky (epee), Margaret Lu (foil), Nzingha Prescod
Second Team (men): Harry Bergman (foil); Michael Josephs (sabre)
Second Team (women): Essane Diedro (sabre), Loweye Diedro (sabre), Natalie Gegan (epee)
Women’s Tennis (6-3)
Results:
Up Next: Road trip to Texas to take on Texas-Arlington, Southern Methodist, and Northern Texas over spring break.
Lacrosse (1-4, 0-2 Ivy League):
Results:
Up Next: Villanova at home at 7pm on Wednesday, followed by Vermont on the road on Saturday at 11:30 am.
Archery:
Results:
2013 National Indoor Championships (link for individual results)
Triumphant Wrestler via Columbia Athletics
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3 Comments
@Speaking of NCAA Qualifiers Bwog neglected to mention that Men’s Swimming and Diving will also be sending two athletes to the NCAA Div. 1 Championships: David Jakl and Kevin Quinn for the 200 yard butterfly, with the 17th and 28th fastest times in the country respectively.
@^^^ Definitely a huge missed point–probably only because they qualified very recently.
Both of these sophomores are INCREDIBLY talented athletes. They’ve been performing remarkably over the course of the season, and are the first Columbia swimmers set to make an NCAA appearance in a number of a years.
Of course, NCAA Division I is notoriously competitive and qualifying for this meet is extraordinarily challenging. Certainly it is a milestone for any swimmer, considering the limited number of spots each year combined with the sheer talent pool in the United States.
For comparison’s sake, it is commonly accepted that qualifying for this meet is many degrees more difficult than qualifying for the US Olympic Trials. Furthermore, the top times at the NCAA Division I meet are, year after year, world-class times that are comparable (if converted to the long-course format) to those swum at the Olympic Games.
Big respect going out to what the coach is doing with promising talent coming in to the program. Let’s all hope that, in a few years (maybe even next year), Columbia can finally break the longstanding Harvard vs. Princeton rivalry for the Top 2 spots at the Ivy League Championships.
@Anonymous so much hype this preseason for mens basketball i was actually excited for once, but really last place come on…. Not even worth showing up to men’s team sports anymore none of them do shit ever