Basketball
The women’s basketball team took home a fifth straight outright UAA title with its 82-62 win against Washington University in St. Louis in the Paulson Center on Friday.
The Bears took an early lead as the opening quarter concluded 16-15, and the game was tied up at 19-19 with four minutes to go in the second quarter. The Violets didn’t let that stand, and went on a blazing 14-0 run before the break. NYU kept the lead for the remainder of the game.
Sophomore Zahra Alexander and junior Brooke Batchelor led the charge with 23 and 20 points, respectively. Junior Yasmene Clark logged 14 rebounds and junior Eden Williamson took down seven boards and four assists. Senior Caroline Peper also added 18 points and six assists.
NYU has now guaranteed another NCAA March Madness berth, returning to the tournament for the fifth year in a row.
A final-minute surge secured a 57-52 win for the Violets as they faced the University of Chicago in a defensive showdown on Sunday. The Maroons took charge of the paint, only letting the Violets score 12 points from under the rim, so NYU kept the ball moving to open up long-range opportunities — going just 26.2% from the field, the team had to rely on high-volume shooting to get ahead.
In the final 1:30 of the game, 16 points were added to the board across both teams. The Violets’ aggressive offense in clutch time drew a series of fouls in the last minute, adding six points off of free throws to stay on top. Peper finished with a game-high 22 points.
On Friday, the men’s basketball team fell 84-74 to WashU, putting its conference record at 7-5. The Violets wouldn’t lead until the second half, when a 3-pointer from sophomore
Henry Bickford put the team up 43-42. The Bears responded with a 3-point shot of their own, and the teams would trade baskets for the next six minutes.
WashU took the lead back with 6:26 to go, and NYU couldn’t catch up for the remainder of the contest. The lead grew to as much as 12 points in the final minutes, but a layup by graduate student Darren Rubin got the Violets within 10 as the clock ran out. Rubin led the team with 19 points, and graduate student Luke Kolaja and junior Carnegie Johnson each recorded 12 points and one steal. Kolaja also added nine rebounds and four assists.
The men’s team couldn’t gain back steam as its home stretch continued, losing 91-79 to No. 6 UChicago on Sunday.
The Violets took an early lead with baskets from Kolaja and senior Quinn Clark and would maintain it through most of the first half. When the buzzer sounded, NYU was up 41-39. Kolaja’s strong showing would continue after halftime, as he got the first points on the board for either team after the break with a good layup.
NYU led by as much as seven points early in the second half, but UChicago gained momentum and pulled ahead by double digits. A strong effort from the Violets, capped off by Johnson’s 3-pointer, would cut into UChicago’s lead in the final minutes, but to no avail. At the end of the day, Kolaja — NYU’s leading scorer — logged 17 points and six rebounds. Rubin, who contributed six assists, and Johnson, who notched five rebounds and a steal, each added 16 points to the board. Clark capped off the top four scorers with 14 points, three rebounds and two steals.
The loss is a blow to NYU’s position on the NCAA Power Index, which determines tournament seeding and at-large bids. With the UAA out of grasp, the Violets will need to finish strong to secure a spot in this year’s March Madness bracket.
Both teams will return to the Paulson Center for the final time this season on Feb. 28, celebrating Senior Day ahead of a doubleheader against Brandeis University.
Fencing
NYU’s men’s and women’s fencing went undefeated on Sunday in a tournament hosted by Long Island University.
The Violets opened with a contest against the New Jersey Institute of Technology, in which the men’s team edged out a 14-13 win and the women’s team dominated in a 23-4 contest. They were neck-and-neck in their contests against Wagner College, with 16-11 and 15-12 wins for the men and women, respectively. The teams’ third and final contest of the day was against host LIU — the men’s team finished in another 16-11 victory, while the women’s team controlled the match for an impressive 22-5 win.
Senior foil Farr Dickson led the men with six wins. On the women’s team, junior Aurora Aschettino led all fencers with eight victories in foil and first-year Rosemarie Benciu racked up seven wins in saber.
Both teams will return to the Paulson Center for senior night on Feb. 25 to host the George Kolombatovich Invitational.
Swimming & diving
The Violets hosted the NYU Winter Invitational on Saturday, which doesn’t count towards the season record, with swimmers from Adelphi University, Baruch College, the United States Merchant Marine Academy, the University of Bridgeport and Pace University.
The women’s team saw senior Andrea Wu and sophomore Alia Saba take first and second respectively in the 100-yard butterfly, while senior Leo Han took first in the men’s competition for the event. Sophomores Bethany Spangler and Evan Jue were the only competitors in the women’s and men’s 1650 yard freestyle, respectively, and recorded times of 17:15.92 and 15:40.50.
Swimming and diving enters the NCAA postseason on a high note, and will compete in the regional diving championships on Feb. 27 and 28.
Tennis
The women’s tennis team blanked Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on Saturday in its first scoring contest of the spring season.
All three doubles pairs swept their matches, and No. 2 sophomore pair Emma Kast and Victoria Wang blanked RPI 6-0. In the singles matches, all six Violets notched victories in their matches — senior captain Aditi Narayan claimed a hard-won comeback with a score of 4-6, 7-5 and 10-8 in the tiebreaker.
On Sunday, the men’s and women’s teams won their matchups against Union College. The women dominated 6-1, while the men secured a 5-2 victory in their first matchup of the season.
The women’s team saw No. 3 singles player and first-year Sophia Yang command a 6-0, 6-0 victory, while all three pairs claimed comfortable wins in their matches. Graduate student Niklas von Hellens triumphed in a 6-3, 6-2 contest as the first singles player on the team, and second singles player sophomore Bryan Hui clinched a hard-fought first set of 7-5 before winning the second 6-1.
Both teams will head to Cambridge, MA, on Feb. 27 to compete against the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Volleyball
The No. 6-ranked men’s volleyball team dominated against St. Joseph’s University Long Island in a 3-0 win on Thursday.
The Violets initially fell behind by two points at the start of the first set, but started a comeback and gained a lead as large as nine points during the 25-21 set. The second set also saw the team initially trailing but managing to rally a comeback against St. Joseph’s 25-17. NYU proceeded to control the third set 25-15 to win the match.
On Saturday, NYU fell short to top-ranked Springfield College in a five-set battle. The team took the first set in a close 25-23 contest before falling 31-29 in the second, with the lead changing nine times throughout the set.
The Violets powered through the third set 25-22, before the Springfield Pride evened out the score in the fourth 25-18. The score tied 11 times throughout the final set, but Springfield claimed the victory with a 16-14 score.
Junior Emerson Evans and first-year Charlie Clifford tied for the most kills in the match with 20 and junior Devyn Nguyen racked up 47 assists.
NYU will next take on New Jersey City University on Feb. 26 in Jersey City, NJ.
Wrestling
The wrestling team headed to Rochester on Saturday to compete in an invitational hosted by St. John Fisher University. NYU placed third place overall out of eight teams.
The Violets won 20 out of a total of 35 bouts — sophomore Xavier Diaz took home the team’s first title of the night in the 125-lb class, claiming his bracket with a technical fall in the championship. First-year Cristian Gioia also took home a first-place finish in the 185-lb contest. Junior Stivan Kalchev and sophomore Dmitry Derbedyenyev notched top-three finishes for the Violets in their respective brackets.
The team will return to the mat across the river at the NCAA Mideast Regional hosted by The College of New Jersey on Feb. 27.
Contact Sherry Chen and Kiran Komanduri at [email protected].