By: Matt Sugam (contributions from GoColumbiaLions.com)
NEW YORK — The Columbia women's basketball team's revenge tour was in full swing Friday night at a packed Levien Gymnasium, as the Lions avenged their only Ivy loss and cruised to victory, 72-50, over Penn.
Columbia (18-3, 7-1 Ivy) was explosive from the beginning behind the play of Jaida Patrick, who scored game-high 22 points to go with five assists and two steals. She scored a dozen in the first quarter, where the Lions took a double-digit lead and never looked back.
"Extremely motivated," Patrick said with a smile when asked about avenging the loss to Penn last month. "We don't like to lose. Nobody likes to lose, especially this group as we're a very competitive group. We knew we had to go out there and handle business. We've been calling it a revenge game all week and that's exactly what we treated it as and I think it reflected in our play."
Kaitlyn Davis followed up her first career triple-double with 16 points 10 rebounds, six assists and two steals. Abbey Hsu had 17 points, including five 3-pointers, and three steals for Columbia in front of 2,111 fans.
"It was amazing having all the fans here supporting us, the students, the community," head coach Megan Griffith '07CC said. "Just looking up before the tip and seeing so many people here excited about what this program is doing. It's really special to be home and have that atmosphere."
Leading by as many as a dozen on a couple of occasions, the Lions led 23-13 after the first quarter. Columbia led by as many as 19 in the second quarter before taking a 41-24 advantage over Penn (13-8, 5-3 Ivy) into the break.
Columbia would lead by as many as 25 in the third quarter of "Barnard Night," an annual game celebrating the Columbia-Barnard Athletic Consortium. The neighboring school is home to several Columbia student-athletes, including basketball players Mary Lobon, Nicole Stephens, and Noa Comesaña.
Penn trailed 61-39 heading to the fourth after Hsu came up with a steal and drained a long jumper at the buzzer.
Columbia would balloon its lead to 27 on Hsu's fifth 3-pointer with 6:24 remaining in the game. Hannah Pratt had nine points and 10 rebounds. Columbia outscored Penn 30-0 on the break. The Lions also dished out 22 assists.
"That's just how we play," Patrick said. "We like to get out and we like to run, we like to find open layups or threes in transition."
The 2022 revenge tour included wins over Seton Hall following Columbia's heartbreaking loss in the WNIT Quarterfinals last season. There are also a pair of wins over UMass and Stony Brook to avenge 2021-22 season losses. Then there was Princeton, whom Columbia defeated in Jadwin Gym on January 6 to snap a 27-game series losing streak. Penn was the latest addition to that tour, snapping Columbia's 10-game winning streak the night after the Lions downed Princeton.
"I was happy with how we responded from a month ago," Griffith said. "And we'll be ready for tomorrow night."
Now, Columbia has a chance to sweep the season series with Princeton, and thus an Ivy weekend Penn and Princeton for the first time since 2008. By doing so, Columbia could take a stranglehold on its first Ivy League Title in program history in a pivotal weekend against the two teams tied for second place.
"We've been taking it one game at a time for sure," Patrick said. "We knew that there was going to be a packed gym and we were really excited about that. We love our fanbase. We're so thankful to have such a great support system. We knew it was going to be packed and we don't want to disappoint our fans, so we just want to keep going game by game."
The Lions will host Princeton Saturday at 4 p.m. The game will air live on SNY and ESPN+. Tickets for that game can be purchased here.
"Our team is really ready to go out there and attack them tomorrow. Just be the aggressors from the start," Griffith said. "That win at Princeton was extremely necessary for us to just start understanding it's not David vs. Goliath anymore."
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Matt Sugam '23 SPS has been covering sports in the NY metropolitan area for over a decade. He has spent the last nine years covering college and professional sports as a stringer for the Associated Press and contributing to The New York Times, USA Today Network, NJ.com, and SNY.tv. He's covering Lions Athletics for gocolumbialions.com while pursuing an M.S. in Strategic Communication at Columbia SPS. Follow him on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Visit his website at www.mattsugam.com.
