Basketball
The women’s basketball team beat the University of Maine at Farmington at the Paulson Center on Friday 108-44 — a program-high at an NCAA tournament.
Following a 9-0 opening, the Violets led the entire game. By the end of the first quarter, the team was leading 25-12, widening the gap to 53-25 by halftime. In the fourth quarter, with the team’s reserves on the floor, NYU shot 70.59% from the field: rounding out at 64 points ahead.
Senior Caroline Peper scored 15 points and set a program record with 99 three-pointers in one season. Junior Yasmene Clark led the team with 11 rebounds.
On Saturday, NYU defeated Messiah University 70-47, locking in its spot in the Sweet 16. Messiah led in the first quarter 9-5 before NYU notched 14 consecutive points and led for the rest of the game.
Peper and junior Brooke Batchelor both played the full 40 minutes and led the team with 25 and 15 points, respectively. Clark grabbed another 15 rebounds, bringing her season average to 10.8 per game.
The women’s team will return to the court on March 13 against Hardin-Simmons University in hopes of advancing to the Elite Eight. The Violets will also host next week’s game between University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and University of Southern Maine.
The men’s basketball team won against Gettysburg College 65-53 in the first round of the NCAA tournament on Friday, before falling out in the second round against Wesleyan University.
On Friday, the Violets trailed 7-6 in the first half before scoring 14 consecutive points and keeping its lead. NYU held a 15-point lead multiple times in the second half, and the victory advanced the team to the tournament’s second round.
Graduate student Darren Rubin led the team with 24 points in the game and junior Carnegie Johnson grabbed nine rebounds.
In the second round, NYU was knocked out 84-69 by host Wesleyan. The first half was close, with the lead changing seven times and Wesleyan leading 39-36 by halftime. In the second half, graduate student Luke Kolaja scored a field goal to pull NYU to 50-49, one point behind Wesleyan — but the opposition then scored eight consecutive points and NYU trailed for the rest of the game.
In their last game, Rubin led the team with 20 points, Kolaja with 19, senior Bryan Moussako with 10, senior Quinn Clark with six and graduate student Andrew Waldman with four.
The Violets concluded the season with a record of 18-9 and an 8-6 conference record.
Baseball
After three weather cancellations, NYU opened its baseball season with a 10-1 loss against Swarthmore College on Wednesday.
The Violets took the first lead of the game, when first-year Evan Robson’s groundout RBI allowed Dominic Holton to score in the second inning. NYU held onto the 1-0 lead until the bottom of the fifth inning, when Swarthmore batted in six runs and kept ahead the rest of the game.
After its Saturday doubleheader against The City College of New York was postponed, NYU claimed its first win of the season with a tight 8-7 contest in a doubleheader against SUNY Cortland on Sunday.
The Violets scored three runs in the first inning, with senior Harrison Blueweiss plating NYU’s first run off sophomore CJ Franchini’s sacrifice fly. Cortland managed to get two runs in the bottom of the first but couldn’t tie the game.
The Violets scored three more runs during the third and fourth innings. Cortland tied the score at the bottom of the sixth, but NYU snagged another two runs and kept the lead for the rest of the game.
The Violets lost 15-3 in the second game of the day. NYU took the first two runs: Sophomore Aidan Howladar’s RBI led junior Matt Dahl to score a run and Blueweiss’ sacrifice fly allowed Howladar to score. But Cortland took the lead with eight runs in the top of the sixth inning, before Franchini scored NYU’s third and final run of the game.
The Violets will take the field again on March 14 against Russell Sage College in Bradenton, Florida.
Fencing
The men’s and women’s fencing teams competed in the NCAA Northeast Regionals at Vassar College’s Walker Field House in Poughkeepsie, New York on Sunday.
In the women’s saber event, sophomore Greta Yuan breached the top 20, leading the Violets at 19 out of 52 competitors, while first-years Liisa Hambazaza, Rosemarie Benciu and Sophia Luker followed with finishes in 23rd, 32nd and 36th place, respectively.
Men’s saber saw first-year Surya Mattoo and senior Jerry Pan achieve places in the top 15 out of 46 competitors, finishing 12th and 13th, with junior Vincent Hong and first-year Zhenhao Liu rounding out the Violets at 34th and 43rd place.
In the men’s foil event, sophomore Anup Banerjee and junior Adam Wong led the team, finishing in 14th and 15th place. Senior Farr Dickson placed 27th, while sophomore Anders Yu tied with Phillip Nunnink from Wheaton College for 30th out of 42.
In women’s foil, the Violets settled in the middle of the ranks as juniors Aurora Aschettino and Audrey Shitamoto placed 29th and 37th, respectively, out of 52 competitors. Graduate student Claudia Meyer and senior Emily Luo followed close behind, finishing in 39th and 41st.
Every NYU competitor in women’s epee finished in the top 30 out of 53 competitors. Sophomore Katherine Chen led the charge, finishing ninth, and Azniv Basralian followed at 15th. Junior Lily Papadakis and first-year Hiba Hafeez placed 21st and 29th.
In men’s epee, first-year Szymon Wojciechowski finished out on top, while first-year Jordan Macarty placed 13th, sophomore Ajit Sivakumar placed 18th and first-year Julius Destefano tied for 23rd out of 38 competitors.
The qualifiers for the NCAA Championships, hosted by the University of Notre Dame, will be announced on March 10 — with the women’s competition starting March 19 and the men’s March 21.
Softball
The softball team opened up its season at the Triangle Collegiate Softball Classic in Raleigh, NC on Saturday.
The Violets fell to the University of Mary Washington 11-2 in a five-inning game. Sophomore Naya Schubel scored NYU’s first solo home run in the bottom of the first inning and first-year Emma Sung scored NYU’s second on a sacrifice play in the fourth.
The second matchup of the day paired NYU against Mary Baldwin University, bringing the Violets down in a close 8-7 game.
Mary Baldwin was leading 8-2 by the bottom of the fifth inning. NYU managed to score five runs with two outs in the sixth, but couldn’t score a tying run.
NYU started its Sunday with a 6-5 loss against Sweet Briar College. Schubel hit a two-run home run at the top of the first inning, batting sophomore Siena Kiefer and herself into scoring the two runs for the Violets. The Vixens scored four runs in the bottom of the second to take the lead. NYU tied the game with two more runs, but the Vixens scored its fifth run in the bottom of the fourth and led for the rest of the game.
The day ended triumphant with an 8-7 win against Randolph College. The game was stagnant until the bottom of the third inning, when NYU scored five runs. Randolph responded with five runs in the top of the fourth, and one each in the fifth and sixth innings — but a triple from first-year Carly Nelson and a sacrifice from Schubel earned the Violets two more runs to tie it up. One more run on a fielding error secured the first win of the season.
The team will kick off its home opener Tuesday evening in a match against St. Joseph’s University Brooklyn in New York City’s Bashoy Softball Complex.
Tennis
The women’s team triumphed over Wellesley College 6-1 on Saturday.
Singles sophomore Victoria Wang first took a 6-2, 6-1 win against Wellesley, before winning her second doubles match with sophomore Emma Kast 6-2. No. 1 doubles first-years Visnja Gusavac and Sophia Yang took a 6-4 win in their match.
The team celebrated Tear It Up! day on Sunday with a 7-0 defeat of Rochester Institute of Technology.
Gusavac and Yang carried their momentum into a 6-0 shutout of RIT’s pair, and the No. 2 doubles pair of sophomores Siona Vallabhaneni and Norah Staunton took home a 6-2 win. The third match was conceded by RIT, and NYU earned another point.
Gusavac and Yang also each earned a victory in singles, adding two more points to the win. They were joined by sophomores Vera Bondarenko and Noelle Faber with 6-1, 6-1 and 6-0, 6-0 victories, respectively.
The women’s tennis team will next take the court against the Franklin and Marshall College on March 13.
The men’s team dominated on the court against Stevens Institute of Technology on Saturday in a 6-1 win.
All the men’s doubles won their matches, with the No. 1 pair of sophomore Bryan Hui and graduate student Niklas von Hellens closing in a close 7-5 match. Von Hellens also won his No. 1 singles match against Stevens 7-5, 6-1, and No. 5 singles first-year Jeh-Lei Fan won a tight match that was decided via a 10-8 tiebreaker.
Tear It Up! day marked another victory as the men took a 5-2 win against RIT.
The men’s tennis team will take the court at The College of New Jersey on March 14.
Track & field
Runners and jumpers on the men’s and women’s track and field teams competed Saturday in the Tufts National Qualifying Meet, as well as the All-Atlantic Region Track & Field Conference Championships at the Nike Track and Field Center at the Armory in Manhattan — both last-chance meets to qualify for the upcoming Indoor NCAA Division III Championships.
At Tufts University, NYU’s distance and mid-distance runners all placed in the top 10, with three finishing first on the podium.
In the men’s 5,000m final, first-year Theodore Udelson-Nee raced to first place with a time of 14:16.27, while junior Liam Hagerty and senior Jeffrey Chen followed, both finishing in the top five. The Violets also rounded out the top placements in the women’s 5,000m final, with Lucy Gott and Daniela Skehar finishing in fourth and fifth, respectively. The women’s 800m race saw sophomores Rina Kurihara and Gianna Dawson dominating the podium with first and third-place finishes, respectively. Sophomore Huckleberry Oakes took the top in the men’s mile, finishing in 4:11.03.
In the 3,000m races at the Armory, NYU’s athletes recorded five personal best times: with James Jenkins leading the men’s team in ninth place and Emily Castles taking eighth in the women’s event.
Following these results, the NCAA announced selections for its National Championships. Qualifying Violets will compete March 13-14 at the Birmingham CrossPlex in Alabama, concluding the indoor track and field season.
Volleyball
The No. 8-ranked men’s volleyball team swept No. 4-ranked Stevens Institute of Technology at the Paulson Center on Tuesday.
The Violets had to fight for each victory, with the first set featuring 11 ties and six changes in the lead. Stevens led towards the end of the first set, but NYU managed to go on an 8-2 comeback in the second set to win 25-23.
The lead changed multiple times throughout the 25-21 second set and 27-25 final victory. First-year Charlie Clifford led both teams with 15 kills, and junior Emerson Evans and sophomore Bennet Tchaikovsky tied for the most digs on either team with 15.
NYU battled until the end in a five-set loss to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in an important conference matchup in Cambridge, MA on March 7.
The Violets took the first two sets with 25-22 and 25-17 wins. The first set marked a comeback after being down 17-15 and the second set saw the team trail just once.
But the Violets failed to take a solid lead for the remaining three sets. After a 13-12 start, NYU trailed for most of the third set for MIT to win 25-20. The Engineers won the fourth 25-20 and the fifth 15-11 to take the conference matchup win.
The Violets defeated Emmanuel College 3-0 on Sunday in Boston. The first set saw both teams winning several rallies, but NYU led the entire way to claim the set 25-19. The second set saw NYU initially fall behind 3-2, but back-to-back kills from Evans and Clifford gave the team a lead for the remainder of the set, which it won 25-19.
NYU put on a dominant performance in the final set. After trailing 5-2, NYU scored six consecutive points to take the lead for the remainder of the match and win 25-15. Junior Devyn Nguyen led the Violets with 30 assists, while first-years Artyom Derkach and Clifford led the team with seven kills each.
NYU will take on CUNY Baruch College back in New York City this Thursday.
Contact Sherry Chen and Sayako Ikeda at [email protected].