Weekly sports roundup (10/28-11/03)

Competition for Yale's varsity athletic teams is heating up as fall sports close in on their final games of the season, this month, and the Bulldogs' results overall have been mixed. For the women's volleyball team, a 23-game Ivy winning streak ended in the worst possible way: a loss to Harvard. The Crimson defeated the Bulldogs 3–2 on Saturday, just a day after Yale (15–4, 9–1 Ivy) beat Dartmouth 3–0 and one month after Yale first swept Harvard on October 4. The second face-off with Harvard may have been disappointing, but Captain Kendall Polan ’14 made a season-high 60 assists, surpassing the 3,000-mark for her collegiate career.

In other sports news this week (information from Yale Sports Publicity):

After three straight losses, the football team took down winless Columbia convincingly 53–12. The Bulldogs made four rushing and three passing touchdowns, and the team's 569 yards of offense included a third-quarter 94-yard run for a touchdown by tailback Kahlil Keys ’15—the longest run for a touchdown in Yale history. The Bulldogs (4–3, 2–2 Ivy) scored the most points in a game since scoring 62 against Towson in 2003.

Yale's top-ranked women's sailing team finished fourth at the Victorian Coffee Urn in Cambridge, Mass. this weekend. Weak winds and low temperatures made competition exceedingly difficult — so much so that no races took place on Sunday due to a lack of wind, and competitors paddled their sailboats across the Charles River to watch the Red Sox's victory parade. The team now qualifies for this year's Atlantic Coast Championships, which will be held in Ithaca later this month.

The coed sailing team will join the women at the Atlantic Coast Championships after this weekend's results: the No. 1 Bulldogs finished third at MIT's Erwin Schell Trophy, in addition to earning first and 11th place for its two squads at the Dave Perry Trophy. The coed team has just a few days of rest before they head to Newport, R.I. for this year's Inter-Collegiate Swimming Association's Men's Singlehanded Championship.

Earning its best finish since 2006, the men's cross country team came in fifth at this year's Ivy League Heptagonal Championships. Ten runners earned personal records, and Kevin Dooney ’16 led the Bulldogs for the third time this season. He finished with a time of 23:56.6, and a final two-mile split pushed him up four spots to eighth place. Dooney earned second team all-Ivy honors.

The women's cross country team didn't do quite as well at Heps this year. The Bulldogs finished last in the Ivy League with 182 points, 144 points behind first-place Dartmouth. Liana Epstein ’14 finished first among Yalies, finishing the 6-kilometer course in 21:31. She earned 20th place among the 90 competitors in the race.

Racing in Hanover, New Hampshire, the lightweight crew team ended its fall season at the Green Monster regatta, a freshman-only competition. Yale's 'A' entry finished first among lightweights and sixth overall with a time of 14:49—just one second behind the fifth-place spot—and the 'B' crew crossed the finish line third among lightweights and 10th overall with a time of 15:15.

Last week continued a season of mixed results for the field hockey team. Yale's women beat Columbia 3–1 on Friday but went on to fall 3–0 to UConn, ranked eighth in the nation, on Saturday. The Bulldogs (7–9, 3–3 Ivy) are currently tied with Dartmouth and Cornell for third place in the Ivy League, behind Penn at second place and Princeton, undefeated so far, at first.

For over two weeks, the men's soccer team has been fighting to get another Ivy victory under its belt as it inches closer to the end of the season—but this week ended in more disappointment. After two periods of overtime, the Bulldogs tied 3–3 with Dartmouth. Still, the team managed to blank Central Connecticut State 2–0 on Tuesday, raising its overall record to 4–9–2 with a conference record of 2–1–2. 

Results also weren't looking too good for the women's soccer team. The Bulldogs fell 3–1 to Columbia on Saturday evening, with Melissa Gavin ’15 scoring the team's only goal. Going into its final week of conference play, the Bulldogs are in fifth place among the Ancient Eight. 

It seems Yale's national men's ice hockey champions are slowly getting into the swing of competition this season. The team (2–1–1, 1–0–1 ECAC) finished its game against St. Lawrence with a 3–3 overtime tie on Friday, and then went on to take down No. 17 Clarkson with a score of 6–3 at home on Saturday. The Bulldogs' national USCHO ranking improved to No. 9 after this weekend.

The women's ice hockey team, on the other hand, fell to St. Lawrence 4–1 on Friday and to No. 5 Clarkson 7–0 on Saturday, adding two losses to the Bulldog's four-game losing streak. The team has yet to win a non-exhibition game this season.