Weekly sports roundup: coed sailing wins Ivy honors

For the third straight year, the No. 2 coed sailing team won the Owen, Mosbacher, and Knapp Trophies—a trifecta that represents an informal Ivy championship, since sailing is not an official conference sport. The races took place at the McNay Family Sailing Center in Branford, Connecticut, and Yale was recognized for being the best HYP team, the best Ivy team, and the best of all 17 teams in competition.

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

Competing individually, several members of the gymnastics team left some memorable performances at this year's USAG Collegiate National Championship semifinals in Providence, Rhode Island—the season's final meet. Morgan Traina ’15 took Yale's best finish of the day with her career-high, sixth-place 9.850 on the uneven parallel bars.

After the first and second varsity eights rowed past the finish line first on Saturday, the men's lightweight crew claimed the Dodge Cup for the 11th straight year, beating both Columbia and Penn. But on Sunday, the Bulldogs hosted Cornell and lost in a race on the Housatonic.

Competing for the first time since late March, the men's heavyweight crew won the Olympic Axe for the tenth straight year in its annual competition against Dartmouth. Each of the Bulldogs' three crews won its contest.

The results were just as good for the No. 11 women's crew. All five of Yale's crews breezed past their opponents from Dartmouth and BU, and the Bulldogs retained possession of the Class of 1985 Cup.

The No. 59 women's tennis team is in the thick of conference play, and it seems a fourth Ivy championship might be in the cards. The Bulldogs (11–8, 3–1 Ivy) beat beat Cornell with a score of 6–1 and upset No. 33 Columbia 5–2 this weekend. The team currently sits at third in the standings. 

It was a tougher weekend for the men's tennis team, which lost to two higher-ranked teams. The Bulldogs (12–7, 1–3 Ivy) fell to No. 52 Cornell 4–3 and to No. 17 Columbia 4–0. The losses have pushed Yale to the bottom of the Ivy standings, second only to Brown's 0–4 record.

Another weekend of solid competition has put the men's lacrosse team into second place in the Ivy League. The No. 13 Bulldogs (7–3, 3–2 Ivy) made a 7–6 overtime win against Brown, their third straight victory. The tie goal came from Michael Bonacci ’16.

The women's lacrosse team added a conference win to its record this weekend when it took down Columbia with a score of 9–6 on Senior Day. Seven different players scored goals in the game. Earlier last week, the Bulldogs (8–5, 2–3 Ivy) fell to No. 15 Stony Brook 11–9.

Two members of the men's track and field team recorded first-place finishes at a meet against Harvard this weekend, and many more Elis made personal bests. Captain James Shirvell ’14 added five points to the team's final tally of 34 when he took first with his 1:52.43 time in the 800–meter race. The second top performance came from Andre Ivankovic ’17, who ran an 8:27.34 in the 3,000-meter race and outran his nearest competitor by almost two full seconds. Harvard won with 104 points.

Also competing against their Crimson rival, the women's track and field team maintained a tighter margin than the men's, racking up 53 points to Harvard's 87. Elizabeth McDonald ’16, Emily Urciuoli ’14, Alisha Jordan ’15, and captain Amanda Snajder ’14 each took first in their respective events. 

At the Princeton Invitational this weekend, the men's golf team put forth a solid performance and claimed second place by three strokes. Harvard took first. William Davenport ’15 was the Bulldogs' strongest player, finishing at 209 in a tie for fourth.

In an effort to give the upperclassmen a break while giving the rookies a chance to experience competitive racing, the No. 1 women's sailing team sent a group of its youngest members to compete for the President's Trophy, hosted by BU on the Charles River. The Bulldogs finished seventh among some of the best teams in the country.

The week was off to a promising start when the softball team defeated Hartford 6–5 on Wednesday, but it was all downhill from there. In a second game, Hartford won 6–3, and the Bulldogs (5–27, 1–11 Ivy) went on to fall to Dartmouth 3–2, 10–1, 5–1, and 5–3.

The last six games were similarly tough for the baseball team, with one win amid five losses. Although the Bulldogs (13–18, 6–6 Ivy) currently sit at the top of their division within the Ivy League, the team fell to Fairfield 6–2 and 10–5, and went on to lose to Dartmouth with scores of 8–2, 12–3, and 4–2. The Bulldogs' one success was a 6–0 win against the Big Green.