The Columbia women’s basketball team played two hard-nosed games this weekend but finished its road trip with only one victory. The Lions (9-9, 2-2 Ivy) dropped a heartbreaker to Yale on Friday but regrouped to rout Brown the following night.
Columbia fought Yale (9-9, 2-2) to the finish but never gathered enough positive momentum in a tough 63-61 defeat. The Lions held a 12-6 advantage after just seven minutes of play, but they were unable to extend their early lead into double figures. Nevertheless, sophomore forward Judie Lomax hit a short-range shot at the buzzer to put Columbia ahead at the half, 27-25.
The Lions jumped out to another six-point lead after the first four minutes of the second period had passed, but the Bulldogs soon tied the game with a run of their own. Yale led for most of the second half, but only by small margins, in a game defined by back-and-forth play.
“It was a very physical game on both sides of the ball,” Columbia head coach Paul Nixon said. “Everybody wants to win. I mean, that’s the nature of athletics.”
Columbia’s stingy defense held Yale junior Melissa Colborne, an all-Ivy first team guard, to just six points in the first half. Colborne converted just one field goal in the second period, but she sunk eight free throws in the final 20 minutes to finish with a game-high 17 points.
“We really wanted to keep her [Colborne] around her average, and she averages 17 [points per game], so I’m not disappointed in that,” Nixon said.
The Lions were down by four points with 13 seconds remaining but cut the Bulldogs’ lead to two after senior guard Katrina Cragg was fouled on a three-point attempt. With 5.3 seconds left in the game, Cragg sank her first two free throws and intentionally missed the third.
A jumpball was called and Yale was given possession, but the Bulldogs turned the ball over with 1.6 seconds remaining. Cragg could not get a shot off after receiving the inbounds pass, however, and Yale escaped the narrow victory.
“I think it was a tough pass for Katrina [Cragg] to handle, to be able to curl around and maybe get that shot. But I told them [the Columbia players] after the game, in a two-point ball game, it’s never the last play that beats you,” Nixon said. “It’s everything that led up to that. All the possessions count the same.”
Columbia never trailed Brown (3-15, 1-3) the next night, en route to a 76-51 win. Cragg broke a 2-2 tie with a trey after just three minutes of action, and the Lions led for the rest of the game. Nevertheless, Columbia did not start to dominate the matchup until late in the first half.
With just under five minutes until the intermission, junior point guard Sara Yee hit a shot from downtown to give the Lions an eight-point advantage, their largest lead thus far. Yee paced all scorers with a career-high 20 points.
“Coach just said, be aggressive, focus on finishing, and attack the basket,” she said. “That was something that I didn’t quite do last night [at Yale], so I just really wanted to get out there and get it done.”
Columbia held a 31-24 advantage at halftime after giving up a three-pointer at the buzzer. Brown sustained its momentum early in the second period, but the Bears did not remain competitive for long. They did get within three points of the Lions, but Columbia gradually built a double-digit cushion and controlled the rest of the matchup.
“We wanted to set the tone for the game, and I think we did a good job of doing that,” sophomore forward Judie Lomax said. “We’ve had the lead in a couple games and lost it, so we wanted to make sure we were constantly trying to extend the lead, as long as we had it.”
Columbia is currently tied with Yale for fourth place in the conference standings. The Lions resume Ivy play on Feb. 6, when they host Penn.
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