Charles Young

Kicking off its 2008 campaign at the Marquette Invitational this weekend, the Columbia men’s soccer team is hoping that its third season under head coach Leo Chappel will be the charm.

Despite an infusion of talented freshmen and the presence of veteran experience, the Columbia men's soccer team had a disappointing 2007 season.

The Crimson have stolen the Tigers' thunder.

In the year after an NCAA Tournament where 11th-seeded George Mason made it all the way to the Final Four, March Madness was, well, not that mad. Of the top 12 seeds in the entire tournament, 10 are left after opening weekend.

A frustrating three-game slide for the men's basketball team ended in New Haven on Saturday, as Columbia rode hot shooting and Yale miscues to beat the Bulldogs 82-64. The win puts the team at 5-7 in the Ivy season, 14-12 overall, guaranteeing the Light Blue its first .

In Friday's game at Providence against Brown, Columbia was snakebitten in the first half as the Lions could not buy a bucket in a dismal 17-point output. A much better performance in the second half carried over to the Yale game on Saturday, as a high field-goal percentage keyed the Light Blue victory.

Four.

Americans are a competitive bunch, especially when it comes to sports. In almost every arena of athletic competition, the United States strives, and most often can claim, to be one of the best in the world.
One glaring exception, though, is soccer. With the latest flameout in last year's World Cup, the established soccer nations have again shown that they remain years ahead of America.

The emergence of freshman center Chelsea Frazier as an inside presence for the women's basketball team has given the squad the chance to create a new offensive strategy- a jump-shooting, perimeter-oriented squad. In the end, Columbia lived and died by the jumper in this weekend's contests against Harvard and Dartmouth.

I guess Title IX wasn't supposed to let women play with the big boys, after all.

Ivy League softball has switched to the same format as baseball this season, with the conference's eight teams dividing into two divisions. Columbia has been placed in the same group as Cornell, Princeton, and Penn, with Harvard, Yale, Brown, and Dartmouth in the other division.

The run was coming, and the Lions knew it.

After shooting 2 for 10 from beyond the arc in the first half, a different Princeton team was going to come out in the second. A three-pointer from Tiger senior forward Luke Owings was a sign of things to come, as the 33-23 lead Columbia took into halftime vanished by the 9:18 mark on a three by freshman guard Lincoln Gunn.

After a string of impressive wins by the Light Blue after the season-opening loss to Duke, men's basketball looks to snap a recent two-game losing streak this Saturday when they take on the Sacred Heart Pioneers.

The promising 4-1 start to the season was snapped by an abysmal second-half shooting performance against Stony Brook last Saturday, as the Seawolves held Columbia to 7-for-26 shooting in the second half, and 0-for-7 from beyond the arc.

In 2004, a hot start to the season for Columbia basketball hit an unexpected roadblock when the Lions hosted a mediocre Stony Brook team.

On paper, the Light Blue looked to add another win to their credit, but red-hot shooting down the stretch from then-freshman Mitchell Beauford sank the Lions.

Seven wins, three losses. Zero wins, five losses, and two ties.

While the two records listed above would sound like the seasons of two contrasting teams, they are the final non-conference and Ivy League records for the men's soccer team, respectively. Unlike their counterparts on the women's side, who won the league title despite early non-conference struggles, a promising run in the early season turned into a nightmare for the men in Ivy play.

Senior Shannon Munoz was named Ivy League Player of the Year, becoming the first Lions women's soccer player in Columbia history to win the award. Along with Munoz, six other members of the women's team were named to all-Ivy teams, with three joining her on the all-Ivy first team.

The Columbia men's soccer team's quest for an Ivy win could not have ended with a tougher opponent.

With an Ivy title and the automatic NCAA berth that comes with it on the line, Harvard was in no position to show the Lions any mercy on Saturday. The Crimson (13-4-0, 6-0-1 Ivy) asserted its will on the pitch, dropping the Light Blue 3-1 and sending Columbia to its first winless Ivy season since 1974.

In an amazing turn of events for a title-starved team in this most title-starved of athletic programs, the women's soccer team has gone from a 3-4 finish last year to an undefeated 6-0-1 run in the Ivy League this year. Although this unprecedented improvement for a Columbia athletics team has been documented extensively by my colleagues over the past several weeks, I really don't think the impact of a league championship on the team itself, and on the Columbia athletics program in general, can be overstated.

Again, Columbia seemed to have done enough to win.

For the first time in Ivy League play, the men's soccer offense jumped out to a good start and shone, giving the team a 3-2 lead. However, a Yale goal in the 82nd minute and another just three minutes into overtime downed the Lions, as Columbia dropped another Ivy contest, 4-3.

After a momentous win against Dartmouth that put Columbia atop the Ivy League, women's soccer continued its hot streak on Tuesday, beating Marist 3-0 in a nonconference matchup that had been postponed due to rain.

Coming into the matchup, Marist had been playing well, having shaken off an earlier seven-game losing streak to compile a .

The chances were there, but so was the Dartmouth defense.

Despite dominating possession in the second half, the men's soccer team was unable to break the opposition's tough defense, while an early Big Green goal dropped the Lions 1-0, leaving Columbia still searching for its first Ivy win.

Unlike Saturday's match against Princeton, two goals were enough for Columbia on Tuesday night.

After a first half in which both defenses stifled play to allow just two shots on goal combined, a flurry of offense from the Columbia men's soccer team in the opening minutes of the second half put the Lions up by two goals.

Despite an 0-2-2 start to the Ivy season, the Columbia men's soccer team is hopeful for a respectable Ivy League finish after a strong offensive display against Princeton on Saturday. Extending that offensive showing will be integral to further success, but with the nearest league contest still a week away, Columbia will first have to test its play against nonconference opponent Quinnipiac this evening.

The Columbia men's soccer team's match on Saturday saw a flurry of attacking soccer in the second half after a staid opening stanza. Both teams settled down again in overtime, however, as Columbia tied the Tigers 2-2.

During Columbia's previous action against Penn the team defended well enough to hold the Quakers scoreless for the majority of the match, but the Lions were unable to capitalize on their ongoing shutout.

On Saturday, the Lions again came close to beating a top team in the Ivy League. But again, close is as far as they would go.

A scoreless deadlock between Columbia and Penn was broken in the 108th minute on a drive from Quakers substitute Kevin Unger, allowing Penn to escape with their third straight Ivy victory.

With the Ivy season in full swing, the men's soccer team hopes to get its title chase back on track, as the Lions travel to Philadelphia on Saturday to take on the league-leading Penn Quakers.

Although Columbia has already exceeded last season's win total, the team has thus far failed to replicate its nonconference success against Ivy opponents.

A couple of months ago, Sports Illustrated's Rick Reilly wrote a column extolling the virtues of the Beer Belly, a bladder-like device that you place on your stomach, used to sneak beer into stadiums disguised, as, well, a belly.

Reilly had quite a bit of fun with this device, sneaking it into a Dodgers game, pouring free beer for himself and the people around him and overall having a blast cheating the system.

Columbia men's soccer again solidified its reputation as a second-half team on Saturday, dominating the latter period of play against 20th-ranked Brown. However, a two-goal deficit against the defending Ivy League co-champion proved too much for the Lions to overcome, as they fell to the Bears 2-1.

Although midweek matches are almost never welcomed, a non-conference tune-up may be just what Columbia men's soccer needs. In what will be the final opportunity to find consistent offensive form before the team departs for a key road trip to face Brown, Columbia will face St. Francis (N.Y.) tonight at Baker Field.

A stifling Cornell defense and unlucky bounces in the final minute negated a second-half Columbia attacking push on Saturday, as the Big Red and Lions played each other to a 0-0 draw in the Ivy opener for both teams.

Cornell came into the match with momentum after their surprising draw at 19th-ranked Boston University.

Much has happened since senior John Mulhern first arrived at Columbia three years ago as a touted recruit out of high school. In Mulhern's three years at Columbia so far, the soccer program has gone through several dismal seasons and, most recently, the departure of former head coach Dieter Ficken.

The leading tackler in the Ivy League last year is hoping to avoid that distinction this year.

Tad Crawford, a senior free safety, knows that when he is forced to make stops, his team is losing. Going into his final year, his role on the team will be redefined in the 3-3-5 defense implemented by new head coaching staff.

The Core career of the average Columbia student will likely see him read of epic battles and glorious heroes described by Homer and Virgil. But the same student's sports spectating experience? Can't say that it would be up to the same standards. More often than not, our boys in blue have been imitating Trojans on the field, and I don't mean the ones at USC.

Playing in the Puma Classic against two defense-oriented teams, Columbia knew that offense would make or break their trip. Luckily for the Lions, the attack did perform up to expectations, albeit a game late, as the Light Blue dropped their result on Friday against Lehigh 2-0 only to come back and win their second match on Sunday 2-1 against the Lafayette Leopards.

In their matchups against local teams Hofstra and Fordham, the Lions tried to lock down their opponents with a stifling defense. Now, as the team travels to Easton, Penn. to play in the Lafayette Soccer Classic, it will be Columbia's offense that will have to take the lead

Unlike last Sunday's match against 23rd-ranked Fordham, where the Lions were intent on stopping the Rams' offensive barrage, the Classic will present two defensive specialists in the Lehigh Mountain Hawks and the Lafayette Leopards.

After spending his Columbia career as a backup to others, quarterback Joe Winters, CC '05, is finally getting to chance to be the star of the show.

After an injury redshirt season in 2004, Winters is using his remaining year of eligibility to quarterback the University of Missouri, Rolla Miners.

Try as it might, a fierce defense can't stop a penalty kick.
Despite a defensive effort that allowed just five shots to 23rd-ranked Fordham, missed opportunities offensively prevented the Lions from capitalizing on its superior offensive chances. A converted penalty kick with five seconds to go clinched the victory for the Rams by the count of 3-2.

Heading into the start of the season, softball head coach Kayla Noonan scheduled a tough slate of games for her team to prepare the Lions for the beginning of the Ivy season. Noonan's team was in a prime position to perform: despite having lost offensive stars from the previous year's roster, the Lions returned second-team All-Ivy pitcher Jackie Adelfio and added two freshmen who would become key members of the team, shortstop Keli Leong and catcher Valerie Smith.

In solid performances in the final weekend of their college careers, pitchers Jackie Adelfio and Maiya Chard-Yaron provided the Columbia softball team an opportunity to win in almost all of their outings, allowing a combined 12 runs over 27 solid innings of work.