The Columbia softball team (16-34, 4-16 Ivy) had another disappointing season, finishing last in the Ivy League. Despite the subpar team performance, there were a few individuals who had successful seasons.
Early on in the campaign, the Lions appeared to be playing better ball than last year. The Light Blue went 7-5 at the Rebel Spring Games this year, compared to 5-9 last season, but this strong spring break performance did not translate into success in the Ivy League as Columbia was only able to win one more Ivy game than last season.
The Lions didn’t emerge with a series win against any of their seven conference opponents. The closest they came to taking a series from another Ivy squad were the doubleheaders they split with Brown and Harvard. The Light Blue was swept by Yale and Dartmouth in twin bills and by Princeton in a four-game series. Columbia dropped three games in both of its four-game sets against Penn and Cornell.
Three of the Lions’ four Ivy victories were decided by two runs or fewer, including their first conference win of the season, a narrow 2-0 defeat over Harvard. This victory was due in large part to the excellent performance by sophomore pitcher Maggie Johnson, who not only pitched a complete-game shutout, but also knocked in two-run homer. Johnson led the team in homers this season with six, and also posted the lowest ERA on the pitching staff, 3.67. She went 7-15 on the mound this season, while averaging .273 with 14 runs and 27 RBI at the plate.
Columbia’s second conference win was a 6-5 triumph over Brown. In this matchup, senior shortstop Keli Leong led the Light Blue offense with three hits, three runs, and an RBI. Leong, who started all 50 games, put up impressive stats all season, including a .337 batting average, 29 runs, and 13 RBIs.
Junior left fielder Dani Pineda led Columbia to its third Ivy victory over Cornell, 8-2. Pineda went two-for-three and knocked in three of the Lions’ seven earned runs. She averaged .263 on the season while scoring 23 runs and tying Johnson for the most RBIs on the team with 27.
The final conference win for the Light Blue came in a close game against Penn, 6-5. This victory was the result of a strong team effort as nine different Columbia players contributed at least one hit.
Several strong individual performances this season could not overcome two of the Light Blue’s major weaknesses: poor clutch hitting and a small roster. The Lions stranded 307 runners this season, the second-most in the league. In addition, the team has only 13 players, making it one the smallest in the Ivy League. However, because the Light Blue is only losing two seniors (Leong and Chantee Dempsey), there is a good chance the squad will be able to field more players in 2010.