Away Game Briefs
Men’s Basketball
Friday night, the Carnegie Mellon men’s basketball team traveled to Brandeis University as they continued their University Athletic Association (UAA) conference play. Despite coming off of a strong home stand where the men went 2–0, the Tartans fell behind in the opening minute and never fully recovered as they went on to lose 68–57.
After a 3 pointer by sophomore forward Jack Serbin cut the lead back to 2, keeping the Judges from pulling too far away in the opening minutes, Brandeis went on 10–0 run with the next Tartan basket not coming until half way through the period with a layup by sophomore center Chris Shkil. From there Carnegie Mellon was able to fight back and keep the game close, cutting the deficit to 3 before a Judges’ 3 pointer pushed the halftime differential to 6.
In the second half the Tartans kept fighting and the game to single digit. With just over 8 minutes to go in the game, senior guard Seth Cordts had a chance to tie the game with a three pointer but couldn’t connect. After the miss and ensuing 3 points by Brandeis, the Tartans were never able to get it back to a one possession game, and with the Judges making their free throws down the stretch while the Tartans were chucking up desperation 3s, the deficit ballooned back to double digits. Serbin lead the team with 18 points while Cordts and Shkil both had double digit contributions.
The loss dropped Carnegie Mellon to 3–7 in UAA play and 12–9 on the season.
The Tartans played New York University on Sunday. They will return home for their final home stand starting Friday against Rochester at 8 p.m.
Track & Field
While the rest of campus was enjoying a wintry Valentine’s Day, the Carnegie Mellon men’s and women’s track and field teams were competing in the Dragon Open hosted by Tiffin University.
On the men’s side, their domination in the distance runs continued with senior Thomas Vandenberg winning the 800 meters with a time of 1:53.70, 6 seconds faster than second place while junior Thomas Mayo-Smith finished third, crossing the line at the 2:02.99 mark.
In the mile run, the Tartans took 2nd–5th with senior George Degen, first-year Ryan Auld, senior Eamon Cullinane, and master’s student Elliot Watson finishing with times of 4:25.38, 4:27.86, 4:30.25, and 4:32.41 respectively. To finish of the distance domination, Carnegie Mellon swept the top three in the 3000 meter run with sophomore Ryan Archer, senior Joseph Pane and junior Brian Bollens crossing the line at the 8:50.40, 8:53.80 and 8:58.04 marks respectively, all of which were over 30 seconds faster than the next finisher. In the 4x400 meter relay the Tartans A team took 2nd with a time of 3:33.44.
On the field side, it was bit tougher going for Carnegie Mellon with the only top finishes coming from a pair of first-years, Shane Conton and Eloy Fernandez, in the Triple Jump, finishing 3rd and 4th with distances of 12.69 meter and 12.14 meter respectively.
For the women, the first win came in the 400 meter with first-year Sarah Cook’s time of 1:00.16. Senior Erin Kiekhaefer followed up with a top place finish in the mile run with a time of 5:17.61 while senior Sara Kelly took 3rd with a time of 5:27.35.
Not to be upstaged by the men, the women took the top four spots in the 3000 meters, with a trio of juniors, Zofia Tillman, Sophie Lohmann and Kira Ragazzo, along with first-year Aparna Alavilli finishing with times of 10:47.13, 10:57.04, 11:06.99 and 11:12.71 respectively.
In the field events, sophomore Rebecca Fortner tied for third in the high jump, clearing the 1.60 meter bar, and senior Sasha Spalding set a school record in the long jump with her winning distance of 5.31 m.
Both teams will next compete Friday at Ohio State University.
Women’s Basketball
Traveling to Brandeis on Friday night, the Carnegie Mellon women’s basketball team hoped to break out of their funk in UAA play, having lost their last 5 conference games. Unfortunately, despite a record setting 10 blocks and near triple double (18 points, 9 rebounds and 10 blocks) by sophomore center Lisa Murphy, the Tartans still fell in defeat to the Judges, 59–44.
Both teams started out cold in the first half with a Brandeis three being the only made shot from the field for the first 5 minutes. Problematically for the Tartans, the Judges heated up well before Carnegie Mellon thawed and quickly jumped out to an 11 point lead before junior forward Liza Otto and Murphy combined for 7 straight points to cut the deficit back down to size. Brandeis countered with another run and only a three by first-year guard Anna Novak with just over a minute to go kept the game at single digits going into half, 27-18.
In the second half, the two teams battled back and forth with the Tartans cutting the margin to as low as 4 and the Judges pushing it to as large as 14, before completely dominating Carnegie Mellon down the stretch and pushing the lead, and final margin of victory to 15.
With the loss, the Tartans are now 2-8 in UAA play and 11-10 on the season. The women played New York University Sunday to finish out the road trip and play their last home games of the season starting this Friday at 6 pm against Rochester.
Tennis
Carnegie Mellon’s 9th ranked men and 7th ranked women tennis teams faced off against Division I opponent St. Francis. The men won 4-3, while the women won 5-2.
The men started off strong with all three teams winning doubles to take the first point, before battling in singles. Seniors Will Duncan and Christian Heaney-Secord won their doubles match 8-5, as did sophomore Jack Kasbeer and first year Matt Seifert. Senior Bryce Beisswanger and junior Yuvraj Kumar finished off the doubles match sweep 8-6.
Heaney-Secord then won his singles match in straight sets 6-1, 6-3 while sophomore Kunal Wadwani won 6-1, 6-4. First year Tommy Cheng took the tie breaking match 4-6, 6-0, 6-1 to guarantee the Tartans the victory after Duncan had to retire from his match due to injury.
For the women’s match, Carnegie Mellon also started with a sweep of the doubles to take the first point but kept the match out of reach of St. Francis by dominating singles. In doubles, senior Bryn Raschke and first year Cori Sidell won the first match 8-4 while sophomore Vanessa Pravia and first year Stacy Chang knocked out their competition 8-3. Senior Angela Pratt and sophomore Nicholle Torres needed a bit more work to win their match but pulled it out 8-7 (7-1).
Torres then dominated her match winning in straight sets, 6-0, 6-0. Pavia and Raschke also won in straight sets, although each required a tiebreaker in the first, 7-6 (7-0), 6-2 for Pavia and 7-6 (7-3), 6-2 for Raschke.
The men improved to 4-2 on the early spring season and will next compete in the ITA National Team Indoor Championship on Friday. The women moved to 5-1 for the spring and will next face Division II opponent California University of Pennsylvania on Saturday.