NEW YORK — In the 118 years of basketball at Columbia University, no player has scored more points than Camille Zimmerman.

Zimmerman scored her 1,768th career point Saturday night in the women's basketball team's Ivy League home opener against Cornell, passing men's basketball Hall of Famer Leonard "Buck" Jenkins '93CC for the most in school history. She came into the game 22 points away and finished with exactly that, breaking Jenkins' record that had stood for nearly a quarter-century.

The Lions (6-12, 0-3 Ivy) could not finish off the night with a victory. Cornell (5-11, 1-2 Ivy) jumped ahead early on the way to a wire-to-wire road win, 57-47, at Levien Gymnasium.

Zimmerman, who broke the Columbia women's record in the second game of the season against Richmond, tied Jenkins with 6:28 to go on a crafty step-over move through the lane. She broke his record at the free throw line, sinking her 1,768th point to cut Cornell's lead to 10 with 3:53 remaining. 

Columbia mustered just two points the rest of the way on a frustrating offensive night. The Lions shot 32 percent, marking the fourth time in the last five games they came in under 35 percent. Aside from Zimmerman's 8-for-17 performance, the rest of the team shot 9-for-36 (25.0 pct.). Rookie Riley Casey led the bunch with six points.

Cornell turned it over 22 times, but Columbia managed just 12 points off those opportunities. Meanwhile, the Big Red capitalized on Columbia's 16 turnovers for 18 points. They also bumped their way through the lane for 30 points in the paint and hit five shots from beyond the arc.

Cornell sophomore Samantha Widmann matched Zimmerman's game-high 22 points on an impressive 10-of-14 shooting. She added a game-high 12 rebounds to complete her second double-double of the season. Junior Samantha Clement also scored in double figures with 15 points.

Columbia tied the game early in the second quarter on a Zimmerman 3-point play. However, the Lions went without a field goal for the next 11 minutes. Cornell took a 30-25 lead into the half and led by 10 before Zimmerman snapped the drought at the 6:24 mark of the third quarter. The Big Red went up by as many as 13, but back-to-back triples by junior Abby Lee and first-year Riley Casey kept the Lions within striking distance, 45-38, heading to the fourth quarter

Cornell shot 56 percent through the final 10 minutes and the Lions never put together a run, suffering their sixth straight defeat and third in a row to begin the Ivy League season.

Columbia will look to avenge the loss next Saturday, when it travels up to Ithaca for a rematch with the Big Red. Tip is set for 1 p.m. at Newman Arena.

POST-GAME NOTES

- Zimmerman passed Leonard "Buck" Jenkins '93CC for the Columbia University all-time scoring record of 1,767 points, which had stood since 1993. Jenkins was inducted into the Columbia University Athletics Hall of Fame in 2008.

- Zimmerman is the third Ivy women's basketball standout to lead their school in scoring across both genders, joining Penn's Diana Caramanico (2,415) and Harvard's Allison Feaster-Strong (2,132). Nationally, she is the 20th player in Division I to lead her institution in scoring across both genders.

- Zimmerman passed Judie Lomax '10BC for second on the women's basketball team's all-time rebounds list. She now has 803 in her career.

- Columbia dropped its eighth straight in the series with Cornell. The Big Red lead the all-time series 40-24 since the Lions became a Div. I team in 1986-87.

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