Clearing that hurdle

In honor of the gorgeous weather earlier today, here’s the weekend roundup for your favorite Columbia athletics teams from Bwog’s favorite sports fan, Max Rettig.

Baseball: The Lions spent their weekend taking apart Cornell in pursuit of a program-record win streak and a boost in the standings. Kevin Roy pitched the Lions to a third straight shutout of Cornell before the team broke out the bats in the second game of Sunday’s doubleheader, which saw scores of 2-0 and 8-4 in favor of Columbia. Roy’s second consecutive one-hitter and first shutout of the season, coupled with two of Gus Craig’s five series RBIs, gave the Lions the day-cap win, while small-ball, bad pitching by Cornell, and Craig’s homer (his 5th RBI) powered the Lions to victory under the lights.

The team has won a record 13 straight games, besting the 1987 team’s 12-0 start, and has swept Cornell for just the first time since 1994. The Lions are 21-15, 13-3 Ivy League, tied with Penn for the conference lead going into next weekend’s away-and-home series. Keep an eye out for a preview of that matchup later in the week as the Lions try to capture their second straight Ivy title.

Men’s Tennis: The men served up a sweet Ivy League title when they defeated Princeton 4-0 on Sunday, bringing home their first conference championship since 2010. The 19th-ranked team beat the 61st-ranked team to secure both an 18-match win streak and the program’s first undefeated Ivy League record since the beginning of the 21st century. The Lions won two of three doubles matches and three of six singles matches to take the victory, with Ashok Narayana enjoying strong performances in both types of competition. The men now wait until April 29, when the NCAA will announce Columbia’s regional playoff, and April 30, when the NCAA will announce singles championships.

Softball: The Lions used a 10-1 victory in the series finale to claim a three-game-to-one series win over Cornell. While the team won the first two games of the series on Friday and Saturday, they fell in Sunday’s first game by a 3-6 score. The pesky Lions offense stuck around in the game, despite the Big Red’s early lead, but couldn’t get the job done. In the second game, however, the offense was the catalyst. scoring 10 runs on 15 hits, including four doubles and a two-run homer. Brooke Darling won her 10th game of the season, and both Alyssa Rodia and Shelby Unger enjoyed perfect 3-for-3 days at the plate. The Lions are 21-19, 8-8 Ivy League, and trail first place Penn by 2.5 games. The girls would need a series sweep of the Quakers next weekend to ensure a spot in the Ivy League Championship Series.

Rowing: Men’s lightweight crew found victory in the river on Sunday, sweeping Dartmouth in four races to earn the Subin Cup for the second straight year. The Lions’ coach attributed the win to the team’s great rowing, but mentioned that Dartmouth hadn’t practiced in quite a while due to the Connecticut River being frozen. The Lions won by a large margin in each of the races, with the first Varsity Eights representing the smallest difference of nine seconds. The Subin Cup victory concludes Columbia’s cup competition, after winning the WIT Cup against Navy and Princeton earlier in the season. The men take to the river next on May 3rd against Delaware and Princeton.

Track and Field: The men’s and women’s teams competed in the two-day Larry Ellis Invitational at Princeton, posting some pretty impressive times. Corey Hammond placed third overall in the 400m hurdle with a 53:31 finish, while the four-man team of Noah Lartigue, Kevin Boyd, Ronald Busby and Connor Claflin finished the 4x800m relay in 3:16.33, good enough for fourth place. Emma Giantisco ran well for the women, finishing as the runner-up out of 38 competitors in the 800m with a 2:12.35 time. On Saturday, the women’s team sent several of its members to Florida State for the Tom Jones Invitational, where Iris Chijioke finished the 100m hurdles eighth overall with a 14.28 time. Nadia Eke jumped 12.6 meters to finish third in triple-jump, ahead of fellow Columbians Anna Williams (seventh, 11.93) and Addie Sonaike (eighth, 11.78). Both the men’s and women’s teams will compete this coming weekend at the Penn Relays.

*With baseball, softball, women’s lacrosse, and track, four Columbia sports will be invading Penn, and the city of Philadelphia, next weekend. Here’s hoping they show their dominance, and Columbia love, on our Pennsylvania rival’s home turf.

Jumping over roadblocks while sprinting via Columbia Athletics/Gene Boyars