Columbia Spectator Sports

Starting pitching cools down baseball's hot streak

Eli Schultz — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

After finishing nonconference play strong and opening Ivy play with a doubleheader sweep, the baseball team (9-15, 2-2 Ivy) hit something of a snag and will now enter this weekend having lost three straight.

The difference, at least over the last two games, has been pitching.

For much of the season, the Lions’ arms were rock solid. Between March 22 and March 30, when Columbia won seven of eight games, the Lions’ staff never gave up more than four runs in a game. But during its current three-game losing streak, Columbia pitchers have surrendered a total of 25 runs.

That total includes game one of Sunday’s doubleheader versus Dartmouth, in which senior righty Tim Giel pitched a complete game and gave up just three runs. All three of the Big Green’s runs came off of a pair of homers.

“I thought Tim pitched well,” Light Blue head coach Brett Boretti said on Sunday. “They hit a couple of balls well off him to get their runs.”

But in the next two games, the Lions’ starters lasted a combined four innings. Freshman Adam Cline gave up seven earned runs in three innings of work in a Sunday afternoon loss to Dartmouth, and on Tuesday junior lefty Joey Gandolfo gave up three runs and lasted just one inning at Rutgers.

Cline had trouble with control in his first Ivy start, hitting two batters and walking another as well as throwing a wild pitch.

The freshman righty ran into trouble early in the game, hitting the very first Dartmouth batter of the afternoon and loading the bases in the top of the first with nobody out. But Cline was able to work out of the jam, as the Big Green only managed to get two runs across in that frame, and the freshman was able to hold Dartmouth hitless in the second.

But in the third inning Cline hit another rough patch, once again loading the bases with no outs. He did not get off as easily as he had in the first and was pulled from the game after finishing the inning and allowing Dartmouth another five runs.

Gandolfo also had some control issues in his outing at Rutgers, hitting a batter and only lasting one inning. The three Rutgers runs came off four hits, and even after Gandolfo left the game the hits kept coming. Rutgers put up 15 runs on 17 hits that afternoon, as Columbia’s bullpen also struggled to get batters out.

Despite the recent downturn, Columbia’s pitching has plenty of potential to bounce back.

For instance, in game two of the Dartmouth doubleheader, the Lions’ relievers held Dartmouth off the scoreboard for six innings after Cline was pulled.

“I think our bullpen has been a positive, no question,” Boretti said after Tuesday’s game at Rutgers, adding that freshman righty Kevin Roy, junior righty Zack Tax pitched well over the weekend. Boretti also said that sophomore lefty Mike Weisman “threw another couple good innings today. He’s throwing strikes and mixing very well.”

Aside from the recent downturn, Columbia’s rotation has also given Boretti reason to be optimistic.

“We feel good about the guys after our starters, just like we feel good about our starters,” Boretti said over the weekend.

The trio of Giel, junior lefty David Speer, and junior righty Joey Donino gave up only six runs in three games between them over the weekend, and even Cline has shown plenty of potential. Most notably, Cline struck out 14 batters in eight scoreless innings against New York Institute of Technology on March 22.

“Adam Cline had a rough outing, but I think Adam will bounce back just fine,” Boretti said.

The Lions will have a chance to get Cline and the rest of their arms back on track this weekend as Ivy play continues with a pair of doubleheaders at Yale and at Brown.

eli.schultz@columbiaspectator.com | @CUspecsports

Glance brings recruiting prowess, competitive nature to Columbia

Myles Simmons — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

Wednesday afternoon marked the beginning of a new era for Columbia women’s basketball with the introduction of head coach Stephanie Glance.

The collegiate coach of 25 years spoke to a sizeable crowd of alumni, players, media, and new colleagues—including football head coach Pete Mangurian and men’s basketball head coach Kyle Smith—at a gathering at Faculty House.

A visibly excited Athletic Director M. Dianne Murphy took to the podium first to introduce Glance, citing the coach’s high basketball IQ and recruiting skills as reasons for her hire.

“Stephanie is recognized by her peers as a tremendous leader and an excellent basketball coach,” Murphy said. “We’re going to be great partners. We’re going to work together to give Columbia University the women’s basketball program it deserves.”

Glance replaces Paul Nixon, who finished his eight-year tenure with a 70-153 overall record—including 38-74 in the conference. Though Nixon started out his tenure with success, the Lions finished the last two seasons with records of 3-25 (1-13) and 5-23 (3-11).

A native of western North Carolina, Glance said that she’s been competitive her whole life—starting with board games.

“My mother tells me that she had to really help me understand that I could not keep an ongoing score in Monopoly for my brother, so every game we played, he started in debt—he could never win,” Glance said. “I had to learn that those things are inappropriate, and that’s not really how you should try to win. She taught me at a very young age those kinds of life lessons.”

Glance attended Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla., where she played volleyball and basketball and majored in English. She first got into coaching with a job as a high school English teacher in Florida, which came with the package deal of assistant coaching volleyball and basketball.

“I’m a teacher at heart—I love to teach,” Glance said. “I look forward to working with the players here who do have very high IQs and translating that to the basketball court.”

After stints as an assistant coach at the University of South Florida and what was then known as Southwestern Texas State University, Glance received a call in 1994 from North Carolina State University’s legendary women’s basketball coach, Kay Yow.

Glance ended up working for 15 years as an associate head coach at NC State, also serving as interim head coach in the 2006-2007 and 2008-2009 seasons while Yow was battling breast cancer.

Since Yow’s death in 2009, Glance is now on her third school in five years. She first moved on to be an assistant coach for another storied women’s basketball head coach—Pat Summitt at the University of Tennessee. Though Glance only worked with Summitt for a year, the two have been friends for a long time.

Glance said that she’s learned too many life lessons from Summitt and Yow to list.

“Both of them really, of course, value winning, but they also value winning in a way that represents integrity, class, excellence in every way,” she said. “I’ve been very blessed to have those experiences, and felt very obligated in a very good way to pay that forward.”

And though she had planned to stay with Summitt at Tennessee for a while, those plans changed.

“Illinois State called, gave me the opportunity to go there and be a head coach,” she said. “Illinois State has a great tradition in women’s basketball.” Glance called former Illinois State head coach Jill Hutchison “a pioneer in the sport.”

Glance enjoyed plenty of successes in her first stint as a full-time head coach, going 67-35 and amassing three Women’s National Invitation Tournament appearances. But that didn’t stop her from taking on the challenge of coming to Columbia.

“I had three great years at Illinois State, and just felt like this was a great time to make a move, to be somewhere I’ve always wanted to be—in New York, in the Ivy League,” she said. “It was kind of just a gut feeling that this was a great place for me to be.”

One factor that contributed to Glance’s decision was her friendship with Murphy. Glance said they’ve known each other for a while.

“I wouldn’t even recall the first time I met her,” Glance said. “But I had the opportunity to work for legendary people in Kay Yow and Pat Summitt. And so when you are working with those people, there are just a vast number of doors that open and people that you meet. And along the way, Dianne was one of those people.”

And now Glance must embark on the mission of creating a winning program at Columbia. As Murphy said at the outset of the coaching search, one of the biggest problems that developped with Nixon was finding talented players. With that, Glance’s experience as the longtime recruiting coordinator at NC State was an obvious draw to her candidacy. And though there are unique aspects of getting players to commit to Columbia without athletic scholarships, Glance isn’t concerned.

“Recruiting is recruiting, and I’ve spent my life recruiting,” she said, adding that much of it will be selling and articulating to recruits and their families “what is it that separates Columbia from other choices they may have. At the end of the day, I believe it will be the people recruiting them that can make the strongest difference.”

Glance added that she will be bringing in a recruiter to assist with the process.

In her players, Glance said she values not only academic and athletic talent, but also character.

She said she will be looking for “the people that have a foundation of a work ethic, not just in the classroom, but on the court,” she said. “Do they really value teamwork? Do they value their teammates? Is that important to them? Because it’s not important to everyone.”

Though she hasn’t yet watched much film on the current players, Glance met with them after the press conference Wednesday afternoon. She said she wanted to get to know the players as people—like their family backgrounds, the most influential person in each of their lives, and what they expect of a coach.

“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care,” Glance said. “That’s an old adage, but very true. That’s something that’s very important to me, to start the foundation of building a relationship.”

Freshman guard Bailey Ott said after the press conference that she was looking forward to the opportunity to build a bond with her new coach.

“I’m really excited to get to know her as a person,” Ott said. “I’m someone who loves good, strong relationships with a coach, and the fact that that’s what she values as well, I think that’s really important.”

But at the end of the day, Glance was brought in for one reason—to win.

“I think that’s important as a leader, that first of all, you have a vision,” Glance said. “We have a starting point from where we are now, and we have an ending point—that’s an Ivy Championship.”

Though achieving that goal will prove difficult and may take some time, having a new coach also means there is an opportunity for the players to start anew.

“I don’t think it’s necessarily challenges. I think it’s more of new steps, because it’s starting from scratch,” Ott said. “It’s just going to be fun to see how many wins we can get. We can’t get worse, you know what I mean?

“It’s an uphill road and I think great things are going to come. And I think everyone is going to be impressed with us next season."

Laura Allen contributed reporting.

myles.simmons@columbiaspectator.com | @MSmmns210

Around the League: Dartmouth and Cornell continue to sit atop Ivy baseball standings

Noah Stebbins — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

The Lou Gehrig division got out to a hot start this weekend for Ivy baseball season, with three of its four teams going 3-1. While the Red Rolfe division only had two teams go 2-2 for its best record, it still received some stellar performances to begin conference play.

March 30

Brown at Cornell
Game 1: Cornell, 6-1
Game 2: Cornell, 4-1
Brenton Peters got the scoring started for Cornell (15-7, 3-1 Ivy) by scoring in the bottom of the first of game one, advancing from a passed ball. Though Brown (2-15, 0-4 Ivy) got a run back in the top of the third inning, the Big Red’s early lead proved too much for the Bears to handle. Ryan Plantier scored on a throwing error, and Matt Hall singled in a run to cap the scoring in the bottom of the sixth.

In game two, Cruz led his team to a 4-1 victory. He got a hit in each of his four at-bats, driving in one while scoring two runs. D’Alessandro also crossed the plate on Plantier’s sac fly in the bottom of the eighth.

Yale at Princeton
Game 1: Princeton, 4-0
Game 2: Yale, 9-1
Princeton (5-17, 3-1 Ivy) got its Ivy season started with a shutout over Yale (5-15, 2-2 Ivy). The Tigers’ Alec Keller was the star of the game, homering to left field at the bottom of the first and then capitalizing on a passed ball with another run at the bottom of the second. All Alex Flink had to do was bat two players across the plate for the 4-0 win.

But Yale came back in the nightcap, scoring nine runs on 10 hits. The Bulldogs’ Brent Lawson led the way with five hits in his six at-bats, crossing the plate twice. Though Yale was able to capitalize on the Tigers’ three errors, they scored those nine runs without an extra base hit in the contest.

Dartmouth at Penn
Game 1: Penn, 3-2
Game 2: Penn, 3-2
The Big Green (15-3, 2-2 Ivy) was unable to pull through in its Ivy opener against Penn (16-9, 3-1 Ivy). Though Dartmouth’s Ennis Coble went four-for-four with a double, Dartmouth never ended up scoring him. Penn won the game in the bottom of the ninth on a walk-off sac fly by Austin Bossart.

The Big Green got on the board first in game two with Trent Goodrich scoring on a bases-loaded walk in the top of the first. Penn retaliated for the win, scoring runs in the bottom of the second and the seventh, thanks to Spencer Branigan crossing the plate twice for the Quakers.

March 31

Brown at Princeton
Game 1: Princeton, 3-1
Game 2: Princeton, 3-1
Brown and Princeton faced off at Clarke Field on Sunday with Princeton using its home field advantage to win the game. Steve Harrington was a key player for the Tigers, scoring in the bottom of the second on a bases-loaded walk and again in the sixth on a sac fly.

Princeton managed to use its early momentum in the game against the Bears to push through another victory. Keller played a significant role once again, with two hits and two runs.

Harvard at Penn
Game 1: Penn, 4-1
Game 2: Harvard, 6-3 game completed April 1
Carlton Bailey’s efforts were not enough to bring in a win for Harvard (4-19, 1-3 Ivy) on Sunday. Bailey himself led the team with two hits out of three times at the plate, putting up Harvard’s only run at the top of the seventh.

The rain halted game two of the doubleheader in the eighth inning, but on Monday Harvard prevailed over Penn. Knotted up at the start of the ninth, the Crimson managed to rattle off three runs to steal the game and pick up their first win in Ivy League play.

Yale at Cornell
Game 1: Cornell, 8-5
Game 2: Yale 4-2 game played April 1
The Big Red toppled the Bulldogs in a high-scoring game Sunday to win their first game of the weekend. Though Yale put up five runs in the first inning, Cornell managed to match them in the bottom of the frame. But Cornell was also able to score a run in each of the third, fourth, and fifth innings to take the lead and then the game.

In another contest delayed due to inclement weather, the Bulldogs split the two games, prevailing over the Big Red in game two. With a big scare as Cornell put up two of its runs in the eighth inning, Yale’s pitching got back on track and Charles Cook added another run to ensure that they would not see another game slip away from them.

sports@columbiaspectator.com | @CUspecsports

BENEDICT: Columbia must do more to promote student-athlete mental health

Tyler Benedict — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

It’s well established that mental health is an issue at Columbia (someone apparently forgot to tell PrezBo). The discussion picked up again this week after Jessica Fingers, a former Columbia student-athlete, was found dead from an alleged drug overdose.

I did not know Jessica Fingers, and I am not going to speculate about her mental state before she died—to do so would be disingenuous and disrespectful. Sometimes a tragedy is just a tragedy, no matter how much we desire a quick and tidy explanation.

However, since folks are calling once again for a “conversation” about mental health on campus, I figured I would add my voice before we all return to our regularly scheduled lives. My argument is this: Of all the groups at Columbia who may need extra mental health support, Columbia student-athletes are among the most shamefully neglected.

Before you start howling, let me clarify. I do not think all athletes have psychological problems, nor do I think they “deserve special treatment.” Everyone at Columbia deserves more support in a more welcoming, less stigmatized environment. But the fact of the matter is, for a person who struggles with mental health issues, being a student-athlete only adds fuel to the fire.

It’s already well known that athletes must balance games and early morning practices with a full courseload. Many also have jobs and belong to other student groups, which further reduces free time and leads to increased stress. Combine that with an athletic environment where winning comes first, and you have quite the toxic cocktail. The majority of Columbia athletes, contrary to campus stereotypes, want to do well on the field and in the classroom, and this pressure breeds anxiety that self-perpetuates and extends into all areas of a student-athlete’s life.

Coaches and teammates often provide the bulk of a student-athlete’s support network. (“The sofa in our coaches’ office isn’t nicknamed ‘the crying couch’ for nothing,” one athlete told me as I was writing this column.) At the same time, coaches aren’t paid to worry about your exam on Thursday—they’re paid to win the game on Saturday, so they put athletic success first.

Teammates, too, are imperfect resources. While every athlete I spoke to for this column said that they leaned on their teammates in times of stress because “they’re like family; they’re really the only ones who understand what’s going on,” intra-squad rivalry can destabilize the support network. Teammates legitimately care about each other, but they also must compete with each other for playing time. And while friendship is important when it comes to managing stress, it is not a substitute for proper mental health care.

Sadly, this is the area in which Columbia Athletics is the most deficient. While the athletic department provides career and academic support programs for athletes, the players I talked to told me they had never gone through a mental health seminar or otherwise been given additional access to resources because of their association with sports. (Columbia does have a sports psychologist who talks to teams, but given that his official title is “associate athletics director for championship performance,” I don’t know that he cares too much about the sports-life balance.) Athletics employs 10 athletic trainers and physicians to make sure players’ bodies are healthy enough to bring glory to the Alma Mater.

But shouldn’t their minds be just as much of a priority?

Athletic culture is one of the most perfidious environments imaginable for someone struggling with mental health issues. Players push their bodies to the breaking point in workouts, then hide injuries because they don’t want to lose playing time or be labeled “soft.” They skip classes rather than ask to leave practice because they fear demotion. Some athletes (particularly wrestlers and lightweight rowers) have to be very careful with their weight, which is a stressor in itself. Moreover, locker room culture may stigmatize mental health issues further because of its emphasis on “sucking it up” and “not being a wimp.”

So what should be done about this problem? For one thing, make mental health a central part of athletic life at Columbia. Alongside sports psychologists who exist to “help Columbia’s ... more than 700 student-athletes win individual and team championships,” introduce teams to counseling and psychological professionals who exist to help students deal with issues they might not feel comfortable talking about with coaches and teammates. Make stress management and balancing time a point of emphasis among coaches. Put wellness statements in locker rooms, not just on syllabi.

By bringing players to one of the most stressful colleges in the country and doing little to ensure their continued mental health, Athletics is showing us once again that they consider the second half of “student-athlete” to be a hell of a lot more important than the first.

Tyler Benedict is a Columbia College senior majoring in English and Middle Eastern, South Asian and African studies. He is the poet laureate emeritus of the Columbia University Marching Band. The Road Less Traveled runs biweekly.

sports@columbiaspectator.com | @trbenedict

Column:

The Road Less Traveled

Light Blue travels west to compete in Archery Enterprises Arizona Cup

Kelly Reller — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

The Columbia archery team will travel to Phoenix on Thursday to start off its outdoor season at the 2013 Arizona Archery Enterprises Arizona Cup.

After impressive shooting at the U.S. Indoor Target Nationals, the Lion archers have had one week to practice in an outdoor environment to adjust for the weekend’s competition. Freshman Tiffany Kim, who ranked seventh nationally in the recurve division at the team’s final indoor performance, emphasized the importance of practice during the indoor-to-outdoor season transfer.

“I’m hoping to maintain my form,” she said. “Consistency is an important factor when it comes to archery.”

This element will prove especially important at this weekend’s competition, which features not only the top archers in the United States, but also those from other countries around the world. The event includes entries from France, South Korea, and Denmark, all vying for a top spot in the world-ranking tournament.

Kim’s approach to the challenging tournament is the same one the team had going into the Indoor Nationals.

“The team’s main goal was to shoot the way we shot at practice and to simply just do the best we can,” she said. “We all supported each other with words of encouragement and had fun in the end.”

The 24th Arizona Cup will take place April 4-7 at the Ben Avery Shooting Facility in Phoenix.

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Lions' pitching can't contain Rutgers offense, gives up 15 runs

Molly Tow — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

Power bats and pitching woes are two things that don’t come to mind when one thinks of the Columbia baseball team (9-15, 2-2 Ivy). But on Tuesday afternoon, the Lions were not their typical selves. Despite notching 12 hits—a pair of which were home runs—Columbia was trounced by Rutgers (12-12), 15-6.

Unlike in last weekend’s doubleheaders, the Lions were able to cross the plate in the first inning. But akin to Sunday’s game two against Dartmouth, Columbia’s pitching could not successfully execute shutdown innings. The Light Blue used a total of six pitchers against the Scarlet Knights, exhausting its bullpen. Junior pitcher Joey Gandolfo got the start for Columbia but was pulled after just an inning, in which he gave up three runs on four hits.

“It’s not like we walked guys or made errors or anything. They hit the ball, we hit the ball pretty well too, but they hit it better and hit it more often,” head coach Brett Boretti said.

Not only did the Lions get on the board early, they did so with the long ball. After senior Eric Williams got on base with a single in the first inning, it was senior outfielder Nick Ferraresi who blasted a two-run homer off of pitcher Slater McCue to give the Light Blue the early 2-0 lead.

Rutgers was able to respond in the bottom of the inning with a barrage of hits, amounting to three runs after all of the damage had been done. Outfielder Vinny Zarrillo—leader in four offensive categories for the Scarlet Knights and going 3-for-5 for the day—started the scoring tear with a triple to drive in Rutgers’ first run.

“They put together some innings where they had two, three hits in a row,” Boretti said. “Three hits in a row—that doesn’t happen a lot in baseball. They just made the most of it and were up swinging and got it done.”

Rutgers scored four more runs between the second and third innings before the Lions were able to help their cause again. In the top of the fourth, with Ferraresi on base and the wind blowing out to left field, freshman Logan Boyher smacked Columbia’s second two-run homer of the day to make the score a manageable 7-4.

“We gave him an opportunity behind the dish and I thought he did well back there,” Boretti said “He plays in left field for us. He’s DH-ed for us. He’s caught for us a little bit. He’s versatile. The biggest thing about Logan is he’s very competitive and he wants to have quality at bats and he wants it bad. So he’s making the most of his opportunity.”

After the fourth inning, the Scarlet Knights ran away with the game. Led by catcher Jeff Melillo’s two home runs in the third and sixth innings, Rutgers finished with 17 hits—a season high. Sophomore pitcher Mike Weisman was the only Light Blue pitcher able to tame Rutgers, spinning two innings of no-hit ball with four strikeouts.

“They caught a couple balls well—just like we did—and they hit the ball better,” Boretti said of the Scarlet Knights. “They had good at-bats. Seventeen hits—we don’t give up 17 hits too often during the season, so that says something about them.”

Columbia hopes to bounce back this weekend as it goes on the road to face Yale on Saturday and Brown on Sunday.

molly.tow@columbiaspectator.com | @molly1016tow

Softball splits doubleheader against Fairleigh Dickinson

Noah Stebbins — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

The Columbia softball team is fighting harder than ever for a winning record. After playing a double-header against Fairleigh Dickinson on Tuesday, the team managed to pull off a 5-4 victory in the first game, giving head coach Kayla Noonan her 200th win. But the excitement was short-lived, as the Light Blue lost its the second game, 10-7.

The Lions got the day off to a strong start with the help of sophomore Alix Cook and junior Emily Caruthers, as each batted a runner home. Cook, freshman Alyssa Swearingen, sophomore Kayla Shimoda, junior Emily Snodgrass, and senior Alison Lam all crossed home plate to add five runs for Columbia. Fairleigh Dickinson responded with three runs of its own when Bryana Dorado batted two of her teammates to home and then crossed the plate herself, but it wasn’t enough.

Going into the fourth inning of the second game, the Lions led 4-3. Nearly everyone in the Knights’ lineup scored a run, though, giving Fairleigh Dickinson a lead that it was able to maintain after a seven run streak in the forth inning.

Columbia managed to score five runs over the first four innings but was unable to fight its way back after the Knights offensive surge in the forth. Snodgrass was the powerhouse for the Lions, hitting the ball all four times she was at bat, sending two runners home, and crossing the plate three times herself. Teammates Shimoda and freshman Nicole Borchard helped Snodgrass catch up to Fairleigh Dickinson, putting up a combined total three runs and batting two runners home.

The Lions have finished their homestand and will continue the season at Brown on Friday and Yale on Saturday.

sports@columbiaspectator.com | @CUspecsports

WONG: A dominant start builds credibility

Eric Wong — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

Whenever I glance at a bunch of scores on a sports page, the ones that stand out to me are the extremely lopsided scores, high scores, and, most of all, scores with zeroes. These sweeps or shutouts are big statements, especially in the Ivy League. It’s harder to pull off a commanding victory in a conference with parity.

When the women’s tennis team, ranked 62 in the nation, swept No. 64 Cornell 7-0 in the opening match of its Ivy League season, the team sent the message to the rest of the league that it would be competitive and a title contender.

Women’s tennis has never swept an Ivy League opponent before. In fact, before the Lions’ recent, rapid improvement, they were victims of sweeps themselves: by Harvard, Princeton, and Dartmouth, back in the 2009-2010 season.

Despite Columbia’s rise and Cornell’s last-place finish in the Ivy League standings last year, the match was not set up to be a blowout. The Big Red’s early successes in the spring suggested that the Lions would be in for a rough match. Cornell won all 11 of its preseason matches, which included sweeps over Fairleigh Dickinson, Duquesne, and Binghamton. As a result, the Big Red received a national ranking of 64, just two places below the Light Blue.

Such an emphatic start to the season suggests to me that Columbia has a championship mindset. Because tennis consists mainly of individual matchups, the sweep gives everyone in the lineup confidence that they are all capable of picking up wins, even match-deciding ones.

Extending this win to the larger world of Columbia athletics, one important transition that smaller teams on the rise need to make is the shift from “just winning” to “dominating.” It’s much easier to escape responsibility for losses when the expectations are set low and the simple act of winning is enough to appease fans. But when a team starts winning a lot (or at least is expected to win a lot), fans become fickle and start demanding wins with higher margins. Shutouts and sweeps provide just what those fans want: dominant wins.

The effects of these pressures may be a lot easier to see in our marquee sports. Just take a look at our men’s basketball team. While by no means a small team, it set expectations high at the beginning of the season and was projected to finish third. Everything seemed to be going according to script, too, with a comfortable schedule-opening conference win in Ithaca.

But I would argue that the script had a flaw. As nice as the win was, the team didn’t exactly put on a clinic. The men’s basketball team proceeded to drop most of the subsequent games before dominating Harvard for arguably the biggest win of the season (besides the victory over Villanova). But by then, the die had been cast, and the season would follow a series of ups and downs. Narrow losses coupled with subpar performances condemned a season that started with promise to end on a sour note. The resulting finish, eighth place, was far below expectations.

I think that, other factors aside, the team simply lacked the confidence to make plays happen and secure a win in the final minutes of the game. Sometimes it’s easy to point to an unlucky bounce here or there, but ultimately, players need to take ownership and responsibility in order to make game-winning plays.

The women’s tennis team could be onto something big. If more wins follow, we can contextualize the win over Cornell as the impetus for something great, rather than as a bright start that fell off the map. The chips are down, and the team is well on its way to implementing the “winning culture” that many top athletic programs have. After all, a sweep is the biggest and best start any team could ask for.

Eric Wong is a Columbia College sophomore. Under the Radar runs biweekly.
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Column:

Under the Radar

Lions see a break in league play to take on Rutgers

Myles Simmons — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

The baseball team (9-14, 2-2 Ivy) will begin a five-game road swing on Tuesday afternoon, by heading across the Hudson to take on Rutgers (11-12).

Fresh off a split in their first Ivy weekend, the Lions will look to get back in the win column against their formidable Big East opponent. Though the Scarlet Knights are currently a game under .500 overall, they have won five of their six conference games after sweeping Villanova in a three-game series over the weekend.

“Rutgers is a good team,” Light Blue head coach Brett Boretti said. “They’ve played a real tough schedule early. We always are up for those games, going over there and playing a Big East school.”

The home team features a deep lineup, with four regulars batting .300 or above, and five batters slugging .385 or higher. Cleanup hitter Vinny Zarrillo leads the team with a .386 batting average and 32 hits, but the usual No. 7 hitter Charlie Law is in front with 13 RBIs. Steve Zavala follows with 12 RBIs to go along with two home runs from the six-hole.

Based on the pitchers who played over Ivy opening weekend versus Harvard and Dartmouth, Boretti named junior Joey Gandolfo as Tuesday’s probable starter. So far on the season, Gandolfo is 0-1 with a 6.75 ERA over 16 innings in five appearances—four of which were starts. Boretti said that part of the advantage of a mid-week game on Tuesday and not Wednesday is “we can extend him a little bit longer but make sure he’s available for the following weekend.”

And though the team had Monday off, Boretti said that the Light Blue would be set for Tuesday’s 3:30 p.m. start.

“Tuesday is always interesting because it’s coming back from an off day right into a game, instead of Wednesday, having practice and going,” Boretti said.

“But we’re ready to go. We’ve just got to keep competing.”

Columbia could be facing any number of Rutgers pitchers for the non-conference contest, but the Scarlet Knights could well send Slater McCue out for the start. The righty is the only Rutgers pitcher to have started this season besides those in the regular rotation. Currently, McCue is 0-1 with a 7.84 ERA over 10.1 innings of work.

The Lions will have to shake off Sunday’s disappointing performance in which Dartmouth swept the doubleheader. Columbia hit a number of balls hard in both games, but failed to find holes in the defense. In total, the Lions scored just 14 runs over the 32 innings of weekend play against Harvard and Dartmouth.

“It’s a game of inches—it’s always like that,” senior right fielder and co-captain Nick Ferraresi said. “You’ve just got to roll with the punches and deal with the little things like that and move on. Do the best you can to get the runs in.”

myles.simmons@columbiaspectator.com | @MSmmns210

Light Blue looks to reach .500 against Fairleigh Dickinson

Phil Godzin — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 EST

Coming off a rough Ivy League opener last weekend, the softball team (11-13, 1-3 Ivy) will need better success outside its division in its midweek doubleheader on Tuesday against a tough Fairleigh Dickinson team in order to get to the .500 mark.

The Lions lost three of their past four games to division foes Dartmouth and Harvard. The Light Blue scored just one run in the three losses to the Big Green and the Crimson. The Lions’ top two hitters, Nicole Borchard and Emily Snodgrass, combined for only three hits over the course of the games.

The team will face another difficult challenge against the Knights, who swept them in all three games last season. To win on Tuesday, the Lions offense will need to return to the form they were in during their games against Manhattan, in which they crossed the plate 19 times in a doubleheader.

Fairleigh Dickinson’s pitching staff boasts an overall ERA under two and is led by ace Loren Stavrou, who has a 4-1 record and 1.69 ERA. Offensively, the Knights are led by Angelique Nieves, who is hitting .353 and coming off a 5-for-6 performance. In the Knights’ last contest, they split a hard-fought twin-bill against NEC Champions LIU Brooklyn.

After facing Fairleigh Dickinson, the Lions will return to Ivy League play, traveling to Brown on Friday and Yale on Saturday.

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