Women's swim team captain Cristina Teuscher, CC'00, who won an Olympic gold medal in 1996

The winter sports season has begun, and right out of the gate, Columbia athletes have made a mark in the record books.

In the first meet of the season, first-year swimmers Joanna Kolb, CC'03, and Lucy Eccleston, BC'03, set school records in their respective specialties, the backstroke and the butterfly, in the meet against the Yale Bulldogs on Nov. 11. In that meet, Olympic gold medalist, All-America and Lion captain Cristina Teuscher, CC'00, helped lead her teammates to a tie with Yale, a perennial power in Ivy League women's swimming.

Then on Sunday, Nov. 21, Teuscher won all four of her events against Harvard, including setting a school record in the 1,000-yard freestyle. The Lions, however, could not match Harvard's strength overall, posting a final score of 126.5 to Harvard's 173.5.

The 1999 women's swimming and diving team are on the threshold of the top half of the Ivy League after years of steady improvement under coach Diana Caskey.

In men's swimming on Nov. 21, the Lions defeated UMass 163-137 in Amherst, Mass., with senior captain Gered Doherty, CC'00, leading the way. Doherty won the 50 yard freestyle, the 100 freestyle, the 100 butterfly and swam in the winning 400 freestyle relay.

Men's & Women's Basketball

The Lions basketball season opened at home on Nov. 20-21, with the women playing in the Columbia Classic tournament and the men facing Patriot League defending champs Lafayette. The Lions registered disappointing losses all around, but the young teams also demonstrated their potential.

The 1999 men's basketball recruiting class includes, from left: Egan Hill, Treg Duerksen, Jaime Irvine, Prince Ogbogu, Brad Johnson, Chris Wiedemann. Not pictured: Marco McCottry

The men recovered a significant half-time deficit to pull within four (55-51) with 3:04 left to play, but ultimately fell 59-52 to Lafayette. Sophomore forward Craig Austin, who was held scoreless in the first half, led the Lion comeback with 16 second-half points, including three of four 3-point attempts. Sophomore Mike McBrien had eight points and six rebounds, and senior Pat Hernandez scored eight points off the bench, hitting both of his 3-point attempts.

Coach Armond Hill had a successful recruiting year and is optimistic about the season despite a schedule that includes some very tough non-league teams and some reliably strong Ivy competitors such as Penn and Princeton.

"I think we're going in the right direction with the kids we got," Hill, a former All-Ivy and NBA player who has entered his fifth season coaching at Columbia, told the New York Post. "It's another year for freshmen and sophomores. We're going to get our heads handed to us a few times but this team will never give up."

• The 1999 men's basketball recruiting class includes:
• 6'3" guard Treg Duerksen, SEAS'01, (a transfer student) from Hillsboro, Kan.;
• 6'3" guard Egan Hill, SEAS'03, from Des Moines, Iowa;
• 6'4" guard Jaime Irvine, CC'03, from Virginia Beach, Va.;
• 6'0" guard Brad Johnson, CC'03, from Raleigh, N.C.
• 6'5" forward Marco McCottry, CC'03, from Cleveland Heights, Ohio
• 6'5" forward Prince Ogbogu, CC'03, from Orange, Ohio;
• 6'9" center Chris Wiedemann, CC'03, from Pleasanton, Calif.

See the entire men's roster.

For the Columbia women's basketball team, the season began with two quick losses in the Columbia Classic Tournament on Nov. 20-21. The Lions first fell to Drexel (68-54) then to Oakland University (95-80).

In the consolation game against Oakland, senior guard Catherine Tubridy, CC'00, had a career-high 23 points for the Lions while junior forward Shawnee Pickney, CC'01, added 14 points and had nine rebounds. Shaunte Edmunds, CC'03, a 6'3" freshman center, scored 11 points off the bench.

"We had a great recruiting year and look for a few of them to emerge as threats in the Ivy League," said Coach Jay Butler, now in his fourth season with the Lions.

Women's basketball captain Catherine Tubridy, CC'00

Highlights from other winter teams include:

Fencing
Both men's and women's fencing teams are as usual expected to be a force not only in the Ivy League this winter but in the nation.

The women are headed by Erinn Smart, BC'01, and Susan Jennings, CC'00, both foilists and both top-five finishers in last year's NCAA national tournament.

Among the new faces, look for Monica Conley, CC'03, a Junior Olympic finalist to strengthen the epée squad, the weakness of which likely kept the Ivy champs from finishing in the team medals at the NCAA's last year.

Five of the six first-years on the men's squad are nationally ranked. Of that group, keep an eye out for Kevin Ericksen, CC'03. This former leader of the gold medal-winning U.S. Under-19 Foil Team should make an immediate impact. He will be in good company with fellow foilists Jed Dupree, CC'01, and Rafi Bruckner, CC'01. They are considered possibly the weapon's best tandem in the country.

Indoor Track & Field
The track and field squads (both the men's and the women's) are Columbia's most improved teams in the few seasons since coach Willy Wood came to Morningside Heights; the trajectory is expected only to continue upward this winter.

After its 3rd-place showing at the fall's cross-country Heptagonals and its 5th place at the NCAA East Regional--best finishes ever in both meets--the women's indoor track and field team is predicted to make an enormous improvement this winter on the ninth-and-last-place performance at indoor Hep's of a year ago.

Kara Kerr, CC'00, captain of the '99 X-C team, will again be team leader and expected standout in the middle- and long-distance events.

The men, who finished fourth at the last Indoor Hep's, are counting on indoor and outdoor triple-jump record holder Cie-Jai Brown, CC'00, and Ray Biersbach, CC'00, the fall's top distance runner.

Archery
Columbia's archers debuted their season last week by falling to national power Texas A&M, a school that gives full scholarships for archery. Of the four programs that consistently field the nation's top archery teams, only Columbia doesn't award its shooters athletic scholarships

The Light Blue, however, are confident that this winter will prove as successful--if not more so--as any one of the nearly impeccable seasons of the team's garlanded past. They are led by veterans Christina Jung, CC'00, an All-America; Callean Henry, CC'00, and Namratha Tripathi, CC'01.