Jim-Engles

After taking its worst loss of the season against Navy on the road, Columbia men’s swimming and diving recovered to clobber Dartmouth on Senior Day. The Lions’ last home meet of the season, albeit against a weak team, was a resounding success.

The Columbia men’s basketball team (6-14) continued to struggle on the road as the team dropped games against both Yale (16-4) and Brown (9-8). While the result was the same in both contests, the Lions put out very different performances in each matchup.

In Saturday’s 62-50 loss to the Cornell Big Red, the Lions fell prey to one of the defining issues of the season––their inability to win on the road.

While most Columbia students packed their bags and headed home for a chance to relax after a stressful finals period, for the athletes whose sports compete during some of the coldest months of the year, winter break does not offer that same respite. Men’s basketball is one of the teams kept busy over the break.

The men’s swimming and diving team began their 2020 season jet-lagged and fatigued. After flying back from a training trip to Hawaii on Sunday, Columbia topped Cornell, which has won only one Ivy meet this season, at home 167-133 on Tuesday, but fell on the road to Brown 186-114 on Saturday.

Despite strong performances by Columbia’s relay swimmers and sprinters, men’s swimming finished fifth of seven teams at Princeton’s Big Al Invite this weekend, managing only one first-place finish in 21 events.

Men’s basketball fell to the Bryant University Bulldogs (6-4) in heartbreaking fashion on Friday. The Lions squandered an opportunity to win the game in the closing seconds by allowing a turnover, leading to a breakaway dunk by Bryant’s Mikail Simmons to put the Bulldogs up 67-65.

After a four-game road trip during which the Columbia men’s basketball team finished 1-3 and was defeated by an average of 20.33 points in each loss, the Lions picked up a much-needed 68-64 win over the Lehigh University Mountain Hawks at Levien Gymnasium on Saturday, Nov. 30.

Men’s swimming and diving was smoked by the Ivy League’s best on Friday, losing to Harvard 169.5-129.5. While the Lions eked out wins in medley and freestyle sprinting events, they were swept in the freestyle distance and diving events. This is Columbia’s 14th straight dual loss to the Crimson, although it put down its smallest margin of loss since 2013.

Men’s swimming and diving posted sounding victories over Army, Penn, and Yale to open its season. Columbia won 179-121 and set a pool record against Penn, before triumphing over Yale 172-128.