(4) Columbia Holds Off (3) Cal to Punch Ticket to WBIT Semifinals, 74-68

Thursday, March 26

Berkeley, Calif.

10:00 p.m. ET

Columbia

23-8,11-3Ivy League

California

21-15,9-9ACC

Columbia

California

Photo by: Columbia University Athletics / Vincent Leo

(4) Columbia Holds Off (3) Cal to Punch Ticket to WBIT Semifinals, 74-68

3/26/2026 11:59:00 PM | Women's Basketball

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Page and Weiss break single-season records

BERKELEY, Calif. – Perri Page scored a game-high 24 points, Riley Weiss added 22, and Columbia defeated California, 74-68, Thursday night in the WBIT Quarterfinals at Haas Pavilion.

Columbia (23-8) led most of the game but Cal (21-15) rallied and took its first lead of the second half with 3:54 to play. The two sides traded leads two more times before Weiss hit a jumper to put the Lions back on top, 68-67, at the 1:46 mark. After a defensive stop, Page then made the biggest bucket of the night. She received the ball at the top of the 3-point arc, drove to the basket, spun and got her floater to fall, pushing the lead to three with 50 seconds remaining.

The Lions put the game away at the free throw line.

"We knew that Cal would throw a punch back at us at some point," Lavine Family Head Coach of Women's Basketball Megan Griffith said. "They've played a ton of close games this year. I know what they are made up of … Overall, I just thought it was a really well-fought game. I was really proud of the composure we had at the end to get the stop we needed and then make the plays and execute."

In the win, Weiss broke Columbia's single-season scoring record. She now has 621 points, surpassing Abbey Hsu's mark of 611 from the 2023-24 campaign.

"They had a good run there in the third. We knew we needed to stop their momentum because they obviously gained some and their crowd was with them," said Weiss during Columbia's postgame press conference. "We knew we needed to get stops and that would fuel our offense."

Page hit 11-of-17 from the field and filled the stat sheet with seven rebounds, four steals, three assists and a block. Her 79 steals are also a new Columbia single-season record, besting the mark of 78 set last season by Kitty Henderson.

Fourth-seeded Columbia moves on to the semifinals to take on third-seeded Wisconsin (16-17) on Monday. The Badgers defeated Harvard in overtime, 64-61, to punch their ticket to Wichita, Kansas. The semifinals and the championship game are all taking place at Charles Koch Arena. The other semifinal features No. 1 seed BYU (22-11) and No. 2 seed Kansas (22-13). Game times will be posted on Friday.

Cal took a quick 6-2 lead early on, but three straight buckets from Weiss guided a 6-0 run and gave the visitors an 8-6 advantage at the first media timeout of the night.

The Lions were in front at the end of the first quarter, 22-15. Fourteen of the Lions' points in the quarter came in the paint and Columbia held a plus-seven advantage on the glass. Weiss went 4-6 from the floor in the opening period.

The Golden Bears trimmed the lead to one after a 6-0 run was capped with 4:54 left in the half. Page hit a turnaround jumper on the next possession to end the spurt and a 3:37 scoring drought.

Columbia went back up by eight on a second-chance Susie Rafiu lay-in with 1:50 until the break. The teams traded baskets over the final two minutes and the Lions were in front at the half, 35-29. Page's 11 points on 5-7 shooting in the first 20 minutes led Columbia. The Lions had the upper hand for over 15 minutes in the half.

Out of the break, Columbia regained a double-digit lead with buckets from Page and Mia Broom in the opening 1:16 of the third quarter. The Lions' largest lead of the night was 12 when Broom laid in a bucket at the 3:35 mark of the frame.

Weiss broke the single-season record for points scored with her basket at 2:01 left in the third quarter, surpassing Abbey Hsu '24CC.

Cal slimmed down the deficit to four towards the end of the third with a Gissella Maul three-pointer. Right before the horn, Columbia stole the momentum back when Page hit a reverse lay-up off the feed from Weiss. The Lions were in front going into the fourth quarter, 55-49.

Midway through the final quarter over a 1:22 span, the Golden Bears used a 7-0 run to get within one at 63-62 with 5:06 to play.

Cal's first lead since early in the first quarter came on two made free throws from Maul with 3:54 remaining.

Trailing by a point, Weiss and Page scored on back-to-back possessions and Columbia was in front, 70-67, with 50 seconds to play.

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