As freshmen and seniors alike lumbered off the team bus to their respective dorms and houses, every member of the Columbia baseball team shared a collective sigh. If the Lions want to win their first Ivy Championship since 1977, they will have to wait a little bit longer.

After practicing Friday, the team took the many-hour bus ride up to Hanover, NH for its Ivy League playoff with Dartmouth. With forecasts of rain, administrators pushed back the start time of the first game on Saturday one hour to 1 p.m., hoping that it would clear up enough by then. By the time the new start time rolled around, nothing had changed, and the games, which were to take place Saturday and Sunday, were pushed to Tuesday and Wednesday.

For players on the Dartmouth team, the games interrupt a regular week of classes since final exams do not come until the end of May. For the Lions it means taking two of the three days of reading week, with finals starting Friday, to travel back up to Hanover.

The first playoff game is schedule to begin at 12 p.m. on Tuesday, with the second game starting 30 minutes after the conclusion of the first. If the Light Blue and Big Green split the two games, a third game will be played Wednesday. The winner of the playoff will advance to an NCAA regional game.

There are 16 four-team double-elimination regionals, which begin May 30 and conclude June 2. The winner of each regional advances to one of eight two-team, best-of-three Super Regionals. The eight Super Regional winners advance to the NCAA Men’s College World Series in Omaha, Neb.

Last year’s Ivy League champion, Brown, advanced to the regional in Austin, Texas along with UC Irvine, Wake Forest, and Texas. The Bears managed to hold a 2-1 lead going into the sixth inning against Texas before falling 8-2. They were eliminated in their second game, a 4-2 loss to Wake Forest. The last Ivy League team to win a regional game was Princeton in 2004 when the Tigers beat Virginia 4-2.

The last time Columbia competed in the Ivy playoffs was 1993.