Sports briefly: rowing, golf, cross country

Rowing
The men’s lightweight rowing team is scheduled to compete this Saturday in the Head of the Passaic Regatta in New Jersey. The Lions participated in the regatta for the first time last year and did very well, grabbing first, second, third and fifth place in the six-boat field in men’s open eights. There are nine newcomers on the lightweight roster this year, and this weekend’s regatta will be a valuable learning experience for the promising class of 2015. The race will also serve as a tune up for next weekend’s Head of the Charles regatta, in which men’s heavyweight, men’s lightweight, and women’s rowing will all be competing.
—Eli Schultz

Golf
Men’s golf travels to Rhode Island to compete in The Classic at Shelter Harbor, its last tournament of the fall golf season. The tournament, hosted by the University of Rhode Island, will see Columbia facing Ivy League opponents Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Penn, Princeton and Yale as well as other schools from the Northeast. The Lions won the inaugural 36-hole tournament last year with a total team score of 588. The par for the course is 71.
The Lions are coming off an eighth place finish at the MacDonald Cup, hosted and won by Yale. Senior Brendan Doyle led the Light Blue, finishing fourth overall.
The two-day tournament will begin on Oct. 15 and conclude Oct. 16.
—Andrea Levy

Cross Country
Today, the men’s and women’s cross country teams travel west to race against a bevy of other collegiate athletes at the Wisconsin Adidas Invitational. Hosted by the University of Wisconsin Badgers in Madison, the meet features roughly 40 teams against whom the Columbia runners will square off, including the top-seeded squads in the country. Runners toe up at the starting line starting at 1 p.m. Though the Lions are potentially just one of the pack, the competition sets them up for their next meet, the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships on Oct. 29.
—Charlotte Murtishaw