Behold, the golfer in his majestic form

This weekend’s athletic pursuits started off October on the right track (no pun intended, it’s not even that sport season, right?). Sportiest Bwogger Ross Chapman brings you this weekend’s victories by golfing queens and field hockey stars; read on for upcoming opportunities to spectate during homecoming month. 

While Columbia Athletics lagged a bit this weekend compared to the rest of our hot start, anyone who held a golf club or a field hockey stick has every reason to feel good about themselves. The women’s Golf team rolled into State College, Pennsylvania and took home the Nittany Lion Invitational trophy, besting Harvard, Yale, and Princeton among the 14-team field. At the same time, the men traveled into northeastern Illinois and took fourth place out of 14 while Brandon Jowers went ten strokes better than the second-place golfer to lead the Lions and take an individual title. In Field Hockey news, Columbia hosted Princeton, Ivy League powerhouse and owner of a 20-game win streak, and scored the game winning goal with just 75 seconds to go.

Women’s Golf displayed a continuous and balanced effort in their work at Penn State. They never led any of the three rounds, but consistency led them to victory. Junior Monique Ishikawa was the leader of the Lions, shooting +3 on the tournament to place second overall. Camilla Vik, Nancy Xu, and Rachel Shi all placed in the top 20 to help propel Columbia to the top. CU entered the third and final round just one stroke ahead of Yale and managed to fend them off, with both teams shooting a 296 (+8) on the last day. Harvard also made the podium, three strokes behind Columbia. Next event: The women travel to Seattle to take on the University of Washington starting Tuesday, October 7th.

Men’s Golf suffered a bit from a lack of that consistency. Columbia took a lead at the end of the first round by shooting 300 (+12), but added ten strokes to put up one of the worst scores in the second round. An improvement on day two wasn’t enough to bring the Lions back in to the awards ceremony, and they finished eight strokes behind the obnoxiously named Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. Brandon Jowers, though, came off the tee with gusto, starting the tournament with a 67 (-5) stroke round, which would turn out to be the best score anyone would post during the event. Jowers was the only golfer to play an overall under par score, shooting a 70 and 71 in his second and third rounds. Next event: The men will go to the Miramont Country Club in Bryant, Texas for the Miramont Invitational starting on Monday, October 13th.

Field Hockey (6-4) decided to be as dramatic as possible in their victory over the Tigers. The Lions jumped out to an early 2-0 lead by midway through the first half by way of a Katie Ruesterholz shot and a Zoe Blake penalty stroke. But in the second half, Princeton would respond symmetrically, with an open shot and a penalty corner, to tie the score at two apiece. Nearing the end of regulation, though, Christina Freibott weaved through a streak of Tigers and fed the ball to Ruesterholz, who buried the ball in the goal to secure the victory. This marked Columbia’s first ever win over Princeton in the sport, which gave the Tigers their sixth Ivy loss in the last 20 years.  After their exhausting match against Princeton, Columbia suffered an overtime loss an away game to Hofstra, 4-3. Next event: Field Hockey returns to Baker Athletic Complex on Friday, October 10th at 3 PM to take on Towson. They’ll also match up against UMass-Amherst on Sunday, October 12th at 1 PM.

There were a lot of sports going on this weekend:

• Volleyball (6-6, 2-1 Ivy) cruised past the Quakers but had trouble with the Tigers in their first Ivy away swing of the season, splitting the weekend 1-1. Sophomore Jennifer Petrovich crossed the 1,000 assist threshold against Princeton while junior Bailey Springer led the team with 19 kills on the weekend and first-year Anja Malesevic made herself known with 12 against the Tigers. Next home game: Friday, October 10th vs. Dartmouth at 7 PM

• Soccer couldn’t pull off a victory in either of their games against Brown in Rhode Island. The men (3-4, 0-1 Ivy) fell in the 88th minute of a tense contest while the women (5-1-4, 1-0-1 Ivy) lost their lead in the 82nd. The women still carry a seven game unbeaten streak headlined by the 0.1 goals allowed per first half by the defense. Next home games: Wednesday, October 8th vs. Seton Hall at 7 PM (men) and Sunday, October 12th vs. NJIT at 1 PM (women)

• Cross Country finished tenth out of 41 at the Paul Short 8K in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Freshman Thomas Rooney paced the team at 24:52 to grab 58th place. The team in whole ran a 5:04 mile over the approximately 5 mile course, a figure which impresses all of us at Bwog who try to run half that well when if we can reserve a machine at Dodge. Next home event: Friday, October 10th at the Metropolitan Championships in Van Cortlandt Park

• 2 wins and a loss was the theme for Columbia at the ITA All-American Tennis Championships. Kanika Vaidya, Ashok Narayana, and Dragos Ignat all came one match short of moving on to the main tournaments, but won two matches in the process to get there. Narayana and Max Schnur did the same in the main doubles draw. Next event: ITA Northeast Regional Championships, in New Haven for the women and in Flushing (a trip on the 7 train away!) for the men, on the weekend of Friday, October 17th

• Softball (2-2) finished their incredibly short fall season weaker than they started, losing a pair of Sunday afternoon games to Farleigh Dickinson. The Columbia starting pitching looked like a point of strength to watch for when they start their season proper in the spring. Next home games: Friday, March 27th vs. Harvard, 2 and 4 PM (don’t worry, we’ll post another reminder about them)

Fore! via Columbia University Athletics/Gene Boyers