the first minute of columbia’s battle with penn last friday evening provided a fine sketch of the way things would play out over the subsequent thirty nine. ryan soulis, the lions’ 6′ 10″ junior forward transfer from richmond drained a spiffy eight foot turnaround j in the paint to put the home team up 2 – 0. fifteen seconds later, the quakers’ leading scorer, ethan roberts drove baseline from the left side of the bucket to put in lovely reverse lay up and tie the score. the light blue’s rising sophomore power forward, mason ritter grabbed a fine pass from blair thompson and put in the basket that put the lions back on top. the scene had been set, the lions’ front court was going to lead their teammates on offense. roberts, on the other hand, would not score until 1:40 remained in the first half, thanks to an outstanding, relentless defensive effort by the aforementioned messr thompson. though the morningsiders would lead by as many as thirteen points in the half, the first stanza ended with them leading 32 – 27. the lion bigs had produced 22 of their squad’s points while the visitors endured roberts’s under performance thanks to ten points from 6’9″ forward michael zanoni. the second half featured a quicker end to end pace and the boys from philly pulled ahead by a point with nine minutes remaining behind the shooting of 6’9″ junior forward t j power (23 points). the lions steadied, however, and behind thompson’s 16 points and a season best performance from first year forward connor igoe (15 points and 10 boards), downed the visitors 72 -67.
that victory put columbia at 3 – 3 on the season and poised them to move up to third place with a win saturday against princeton. the tigers seemed ripe for beating. they had been overwhelmed up in ithaca on friday and then had to make the challenging trip down to nyc. from the opening tip, however, the stripers seemed the fresher crew. behind the unconscious shooting of jack stanton (21 points on 6 -8 from the three point line) and jackson hicke (18 points, 6 rebounds) and the energetic interior play of 6’7″ sophomore forward malik abdullahi (15 points, 7 boards), the guys from south jersey pulled away from a 34 -34 halftime tie and ran off with an 80 – 68 victory. the lions ensured their failure by shooting a paltry 7 – 17 from the free throw line.
this afternoon the cumb team faces cornell at levien gymnasium. the battle marks the commencement of the second half of the ivy league schedule. the lions stand at 3 – 4 in league standings and is one of five teams within a game of each other for the third and fourth seeds in the league tournament. the light blue probably needs to go 4 – 3 in february if they hope to qualify. they’ve proven themselves a bit better than cornell, dartmouth and penn. they should handle brown at home. they need to grab a win from yale, harvard or princeton to get it done. the stretch run starts this afternoon.
d up and peace out
paulie b