Jacob Shapiro

Jews across the country have been evaluating themselves during this past week and will continue to do so through the end of next week.

Multiple changes must come about if the Columbia football team expects to win games this season and Columbia’s defense is arguably the most in need of some reinvigoration.

Because we’re in the season of making empty campaign promises that will undoubtedly fail to be executed, I figured I might get in the game as well.

As is the norm around the MLB when a home run is hit, the fans from the opposing team stick out like sore thumbs as they stand up and obnoxiously clap for their team to the aggravation of the home fans.

By the conclusion of the 2007-08 Ivy League baseball season, when Columbians prepared to move out for the summer, the Columbia baseball team was making history.

For the last eight years, Columbia has witnessed a contentious debate between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian students, filled with emotion and anger. LionPAC would like to present an opportunity for Columbians to heal the division we have suffered over the Middle East conflict.

For the first time in 15 years, the Columbia Lions will make an appearance in the Ivy League baseball championship. After its four-game sweep of Penn over the weekend, Columbia will take on Dartmouth next weekend in an attempt to win its first championship since the 1975-76 season.

The Lions hit a bump in the road Wednesday night, dropping a pair of games to local rival Manhattan College in Riverdale, N.Y.

Before the Columbia baseball team heads out on a road trip to Cornell this weekend it will host local rival Fordham for an afternoon doubleheader today at Andy Coakley Field.

After getting swept on Saturday by Princeton, the Columbia baseball team came roaring back to defeat the Tigers in both contests on Sunday and cement its two-game lead atop the Gehrig Division.

It’s no secret why the Columbia baseball team is 6-2 in the Ivy League this season: pitching.

The Columbia baseball team enjoyed a successful weekend as it won three of its first four Ivy League contests.

In its final nonconference game before the Ivy League season opens this weekend, the Columbia baseball team coughed up an early lead and fell to St. John’s 10-5.

After an 0-8 start on the road against Duke and Pepperdine, the Columbia baseball team will try to notch its first win of the young season this weekend against Georgia Southern in Statesboro, Georgia.

When the Lions failed to capitalize during a late ninth inning rally on Saturday, their heartbreaking loss showed signs of a continuation of last season.

When the 2008 Columbia Lions take the field this weekend, they will be looking to improve on an above average 2007 campaign in which they contended with traditionally stronger Ivy League opponents.

The Columbia Campaign for Athletics took another positive step yesterday when Philip Milstein, CC ’71, announced that the men’s tennis coaching position will be endowed.

The intensity level of this year’s Ivy League matchups will be multiplied due to the fact that there is no clear frontrunner for the league championship.

Yesterday morning, a new era for Columbia field hockey began as midfielder Julia Garrison was named Ivy League Rookie of the Year.

After a strong showing at the Princeton Chase last weekend, the Columbia rowing squads will have much to look forward to as they glide into the winter months.

The Columbia men’s soccer team (3-10, 0-4 Ivy) lost its second consecutive game yesterday by a score of 3-1 against Adelphi University in Queens. Adelphi (3-10-2) has had almost as unsuccessful a season as Columbia, but turned in one of its best showings of the season to beat the Lions on Wednesday night.

It is every athlete’s dream to someday play professionally, but very few ever get the opportunity to fulfill that fantasy.

As campus prepares for the 2008 presidential race, the Columbia University College Republicans are adopting a policy of inclusion.

As summer ends and fall begins to take hold of Morningside Heights, some baseball fans are already looking toward spring training. Yesterday, the 2008 Ivy League baseball schedule was announced, and its makeup will certainly have an effect on Columbia’s upcoming season.

After Collegeboxes failed to satisfy students, the Barnard Office of Residential Life and Housing has confirmed that the company will most likely not return next year.

This season, the Columbia football team's ability to beat a .500 record rests on one thing: offensive production.

Collegeboxes, the summer storage company which maintains a heavy presence on campus, has drawn the ire of many students after the company failed to return their items on time.

As Columbia moves forward with its plan to expand into Manhattanville, the Student Coalition on Expansion and Gentrification has placed itself in the middle of the heated debate between the administration and the Harlem residents opposed to the plan.

The 2007 Columbia baseball team took the field for the final time this weekend playing two doubleheaders against local rival Stony Brook. After a solid Ivy League season, the Lions were swept in the home-and-home series to close out the year.

The Lions were defeated on Saturday at Stony Brook falling in both games by narrow margins.

The old adage for baseball has been that defense and pitching win championships. After committing just one error in four Ivy League games on April 21 and 22 against Cornell, the Lions proved the proverb right.

While defense can win games, it can more easily lose games.

The Columbia baseball team was firing on all cylinders this weekend as the Lions took three of four games from Cornell. Columbia swept the Big Red on Saturday and then split Sunday's doubleheader on what was a beautiful baseball homecoming weekend.

Game one started off a little shaky, as the Big Red put up three quick runs in the first inning.

After waiting three extra days to play the second round of doubleheaders against Princeton, the Columbia baseball team (12-21-1, 7-9 Ivy) fell to the Tigers twice yesterday in New Jersey. Princeton (10-19, 6-6 Ivy) combined a solid offensive day with some late-inning heroics to steal both games from the Lions.

After heavy rainstorms forced Columbia and Princeton to postpone their second doubleheader on Sunday, the two teams will attempt to make up the games today. The Lions, who swept Princeton in the first twin bill on Saturday, have had more time to rest before their two critical contests today and will attempt to use that to their advantage.

Columbia's four-game set with Princeton this weekend was cut short by the strong rains that swept through the Northeast. Despite the looming weather, Columbia gutted out two exciting wins to push their Ivy record back to .500.

In grand fashion, the Lions swept the doubleheader against the Tigers using a steady combination of offense and defense.

After inclement weather pushed a contest originally scheduled for April 8 to Monday, the Columbia baseball team was swept by Yale in New Haven. Yale took the first game 6-3 and the second game 10-9, improving to 3-5 in the Ivy League while dropping Columbia to 5-7 in the conference.

After splitting doubleheaders with both Dartmouth and Harvard at Andy Coakley Field last weekend, the Lions will travel to Brown and Yale this weekend for what could be a defining four games in their Ivy campaign.

The Columbia baseball team took the field at home for the first time this season after home dates against Penn and Hofstra were moved due to bad weather. In what proved to be an exciting Ivy League showdown, the Lions split both doubleheaders with Dartmouth and Harvard.

The Lions confidently took the field on Saturday behind their ace, junior starting pitcher Bill Purdy. In their first home game at Andy Coakley Field this spring, the Lions beat Dartmouth soundly, 6-2.

The Columbia defense was solid behind Purdy and did not commit an error in either of the two games against Dartmouth on Saturday.

After its first weekend of Ivy League play, the Columbia baseball team will face a stern challenge this weekend when it takes on two Ivy League opponents, Dartmouth and Harvard.

For freshman outfielder Jason Banos, last weekend's 3-1 performance against Penn in Philadelphia was just another day at the office.

Win or lose, the Columbia baseball team has been taught by head coach Brett Boretti to work hard regardless of its situation on the field, and Banos has fit right in.

The Columbia baseball team's doubleheader scheduled against Hofstra for today has been postponed due to field and weather conditions. The games will instead take place a week from today on Wednesday, March 28 with first pitch at 3:30 p.m.

This schedule change means that the Lions' next game will be their Ivy League opener against Penn this weekend.

The Columbia baseball team lost its 2007 season opener this Saturday against St. Mary's College in Moraga, Cal. The Lions dropped three out of the four games played at Louis Guisto Field this weekend, but managed to hold their own against a team that has already defeated two ranked teams this season.

When the Lions take on the Saint Mary's College Gaels this weekend in Moraga, Calif., they will be facing a team that has already been through spring training.

As the Columbia baseball team prepares to start its 2007 campaign, the focus will be on improving after a mediocre 2006 season. Columbia, which went 13-32 overall while posting a 6-14 Ivy League record, did not win a series against an Ivy League opponent last season.

The future of Columbia basketball looked promising last Saturday night when freshman guard Kevin Bulger scored a career-high 17 points and amassed five rebounds and six assists. Bulger, who was a main factor in the Lions' 82-64 thrashing of Yale, proved the depth of the Columbia bench and of the Lions' freshman recruits.

Just a few months ago, senior foilist Sam Cross was tearing up the Ivy League for Harvard. But over the semester break, Cross was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia, a rapid-growing cancer of the blood and bone marrow that is normally found in older adults.

Last Saturday night, senior wrestler Matt Palmer highlighted his ability to perform when necessary. At 174 pounds, Palmer, who was ranked 10th in the country, scored a decisive victory over Penn's Matt Herrington, ranked ninth at the time.

The former Indian ambassador to Israel spoke about what he deemed the close relationship that is emerging between India, Israel, and the United States in a panel discussion held before a group of approximately 250 students at the Columbia School of Law last night.

When head coach Joe Jones needs to re-energize his starters, or just keep up pressure, he looks down the bench to 6-foot-2-inch freshman, point guard Patrick Foley. Foley, who is currently averaging around eight points per game, has established himself in Jones' scheme as a sixth man with the potential to maintain, revive, or manipulate the pace of any game.

The end of the fall season is not necessarily the end of the line for Columbia cross-country runners. Instead, many runners find themselves taking part in indoor track and spend a good part of the winter training for the difficult transition from cross-country to distance indoor track.

When sophomore Joe Bova knocked down all four of his shots and ran down the basketball court to stuff a Cornell player during last Saturday's contest, the fact that he could barely walk just one year ago seemed to be a distant memory.

Imad Moustapha, the Syrian ambassador to the United States, addressed an audience of students, faculty, and the general public about his country's relationship with the U.S. and the changing nature of the Middle East yesterday afternoon at the School of International and Public Affairs.

At the beginning of the 2006-2007 basketball season, it was clear that several teams in the Ancient Eight had done some serious recruiting. A few teams-Columbia, Princeton, and Cornell, in particular-recruited some high-scoring guards. Plenty of attention was given to the recruits, but the question of whether or not the freshmen would have an impact was raking the minds of fans and writers alike.

Senior wrestler Justin Barent, a Wyoming native, may have felt displaced when he arrived in New York in 2003, but he did not forget to bring with him an ethic of hard work, honesty, and determination.

One of Barent's teammates, senior Dustin Tillman, says Barent embodies the character of a genuine athlete.

Princeton

Princeton has started the season strong at 5-2 despite not yet having played a home game this year. The Tigers have won in every opposing stadium so far, with their only two losses coming on neutral ground. They make their 2006-2007 debut in Jadwin Gymnasium this Wednesday to host Lehigh.

Although it is still early in the 2006-2007 season, some interesting trends in the Ivy League are not going unnoticed. Top freshman recruits to the Ivy League are getting more playing time as the season progresses, and these freshmen are making a tremendous impact on the outcomes of the games.

When Brown football head coach Phil Estes looked at his team's preseason ranking of number three before the season began, he quietly remarked, "It seems like if you're number one or number eight [in the preseason rankings], you don't want to be there."

With no intention of foreshadowing Brown's upcoming season, Estes has watched his team slide to its current role in a three way tie for fifth place in the Ivy League.

Although Cornell will most likely finish in the middle of the Ivy League standings this year, junior running back Luke Siwula has become one of the league's most dominant rushers. Through eight games this season, Siwula has rushed 162 times for 740 yards, good enough for fourth in the Ivy League.

The more things change for Columbia men's basketball, the more they stay the same.

Last season, the lack of experienced upperclassmen on the Columbia roster gave the incoming recruiting class of 2005 a chance to gain valuable playing time. This season, the opportunities remain the same for the freshmen.

Despite Columbia football's 0-4 Ivy record and last place standing, title contender Harvard will be playing tomorrow's match as if it's the Ivy League championship game.

"It is a championship game as far as we're concerned,"? said Harvard head coach Tim Murphy.

Going into this season, the Ivy media had chosen the Harvard Crimson as its favorite to end up in the top spot. With only three games left in this 2006 season, however, it is Harvard's ancient rival, the Yale Elis that sits at the top of the league standings and is poised to take the title instead.

Double Stunners

In a come-from-behind win against the top-ranked team in the league, Princeton connected with a 20-yard touchdown pass with 4:37 remaining in the game to beat Harvard 31-28. Princeton moved to 3-0 in the Ivy League, and joins Yale as the two undefeated programs in the conference.

It's no secret in the Ivy League that Penn tailback Joe Sandberg is having a breakout season. Last weekend, the junior back plowed through the Bucknell defensive line to post the third 100-yard game of his career. Sandberg sits just 125 yards shy of 1,500 total yards of offense and 164 yards away from 1,000 yards this season alone.

The Columbia men's soccer team's near upset of Ivy-leading Penn last weekend will certainly be on their minds during their matchup against Princeton this Saturday at Baker Field. The Lions lost a double-overtime thriller to the Quakers in the 108th minute last Saturday.

In their first home Ivy League contest this season, the Columbia women's volleyball team could not repel Cornell's relentless attack, falling 3-0 in Levien Gymnasium on Monday.

A win was never out of the Lions' reach, but Cornell was able to cap games with crucial scores even while Columbia held dangerously close.

For Iona running back Dane Samuels, the past few years have been full of firsts. Besides the countless first downs in Samuels' record, he is also the first member of his family to attend a four-year college.

From the time he was a child, sports have been a big part of Samuels' life.

Columbia junior cornerback Chad Musgrove has an interesting way of looking at playing college football. In a sport that is often criticized for leaving players out of the wealth it creates-where even the slightest gift to an athlete is punished-all Musgrove cares about is getting paid.

The numbers didn't lie. Total yards: 134. Zero third-down conversions. Zero fourth-down conversions. No matter what the Columbia Lions tried, their offense just couldn't escape a nightmarish afternoon.

"The offense was awful," head coach Norries Wilson said.

In four years, Jeff Terrell has gone from watching the Princeton Tigers from the sideline to being the team's best quarterback in a decade. He's the first quarterback since 1994 to win nine games or more over twelve starts, and in his senior season, he's become the most threatening player on Princeton's 2-0 team.

After a summer of anticipation, the Columbia field hockey team finally has a home. When Columbia decided to renovate the football field at Wien Stadium, the field hockey team jumped at the chance to obtain a field of its own. In past years, the team has felt disconnected from Columbia Athletics while having to play on a softball field at Riverbank State Park.

In order for Brown to defend its first outright Ivy League Championship, the team will have to face one of the most recurrent problems of collegiate sports-the graduation of its star player. Running back Nick Hartigan, who was one of the nation's top running backs in 2005 and collected some Heisman Trophy votes, has graduated, leaving Brown football with a substantial void to fill.