NEW YORK – The Columbia women's basketball team raised its 2024 Ivy League Championship banner and continued to party en route to a 40-point victory over Stony Brook, 87-47, on college basketball's opening night of the 2024-25 season.
Monday night's crowd at Schiller Court at Levien Gymnasium saw the Lions (1-0) jump out to a 14-5 start and never look back. Sophomore
Riley Weiss led a trio of Lions in double figures with a game-high 18 points, which also matched the most of her career. Senior co-captain
Kitty Henderson scored 17 with eight rebounds, seven assists and zero turnovers to boot. Fellow senior co-captain
Cecelia Collins rounded out the group in double figures with 15.
"We're so versatile as a team – we have so many threats – and you never know who is going to step up that night," said Henderson in her
postgame interview with Lance Medow on SNY. "That's what's so fun about this group … There are just so many scoring threats and it's just so much fun."
Columbia dominated the glass, 52-28, which included the Lions grabbing 24 offensive rebounds. They outdueled Stony Brook (0-1) in every facet of the game, outscoring them 27-9 off turnovers, coming away with 16 steals and holding the Seawolves without a 3-point field goal all night.
"That's something we've been trying to work on for the last couple of years," said head coach
Megan Griffith when asked about the defensive intensity of the team. "I feel like right now we have the buy-in, and not that we didn't before, but we're understanding what we're trying to accomplish better … I would like us to not foul as much but I was overall happy with our defensive effort."
All 11 Lions that got in the game scored, which included the first collegiate buckets for sophomore
Emily Montes and first-years
Nasi Simmons, Maria Arrebola and
Marta Jaama. Sophomore transfer out of Ole Miss
Marija Avlijas also scored her first points as a Lion.
Perri Page had eight points and a career-high 12 rebounds. Her buzzer-beater at the end of the first quarter had the Lions leading 23-10. Columbia hit a bit of an offensive lull in the second quarter but still took a 15-point lead into the locker room.
The Lions were firing on all cylinders to start the second half. Back-to-back threes from Weiss and
Susie Rafiu sent a jolt through the crowd and forced the Seawolves into a quick timeout. It did little to slow things down, as Columbia started the half on a 15-2 run to blow the game open, 50-22. The Lions led by as many as 42.
Columbia now gets set to take on Providence College (1-0) Friday night in Rhode Island. Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m.
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