[Softball] Cornell wins Ivy Title and NCAA Bid Sweeping Brown

The softball team captured the Ivy title defeating Brown 2-0 and 4-2 to win a best-of-three playoff series today 2 games to none and win the Ivy autobid to the NCAA tournament. Cornell improves to 41-11 overall. The wins were the 16th and 17th straight respectively for the Red.

More information on the NCAA softball tournament can be found here:

[www.ncaasports.com]

And I would expect Cornell would be shipped somewhere other than the closest site.

Summary: Eight regionals, 8 teams at each regional, 64 total, double elimination, all regional games played May 20 to May 23rd, Selection Show May 16th 8 to 9 p.m. on ESPNNews.

I get the impression Cornell still has to share the title with Brown.

Yeah, isn't it true that there are no tiebreakers or playoffs for Ivy Titles, just to settle autobids where needed?

Yes, I should have titled it Ivy Playoff Title. Cornell and Brown both finished 10-4 in the Ivies tied for first and this playoff series was to decide who got the Ivy autobid to the NCAA tourney so both Brown and Cornell share the Ivy title.

whoa whoa whoa...softball plays 52 games in a season?!?!

Actually it was supposed to be a 56-game schedule but doubleheaders with Binghamton and Siena were postponed and never made up this season. 50 of the games were played in doubleheaders. 40 of the 52 games were played someplace other than Cornell's home field and 15 of the games were played down in Florida over Spring Break.

Seems to be about the norm for games scheduled. They had a 54-game schedule last year but 16 games were postponed and never made up. Guess as long as you play the complete 14-game Ivy slate, the rest is not all that critical.

[Q]French Rage Wrote:

whoa whoa whoa...softball plays 52 games in a season?!?! [/q]If you are thinking about a comparison to hockey schedules ... don't. The softball and baseball teams play a lot of doubleheaders, so there aren't 52 (or 56) game dates.

Think about the difference in games between the NHL and MLB. Baseball plays 162 in the regular season compared to 82 in the NHL, about a 2 to 1 ratio. So it makes sense that softball (baseball's little sister) would play something like twice as many games as hockey (56 vs. 29).

Both the Cornell men's and women's track teams repeated as outdoor Heptagonal champions. For the women it was their third straight outdoor title and sixth straight Heptagonal title. This brings the total Ivy titles this academic year to seven. Anyone know what our best year was?

How many Ivy sports (mens and womens) do we compete in?

I'm not sure if an Ivy Champion is declared in each of these sports but here's my list with 2003-2004 champions (please let me know if I omitted or made a mistake):

Field Hockey - Princeton
Football - Penn
Men's Soccer - Brown
Women's Soccer - Dartmouth
Volleyball - Penn
Men's Cross Country - Brown
Women's Cross Country - Columbia
Men's Basketball - Princeton
Women's Basketball - Penn
Men's Fencing - Columbia
Women's Fencing - Penn
Men's Ice Hockey - Cornell and Brown
Women's Ice Hockey - Dartmouth
Men's Squash - Harvard
Women's Squash - Yale
Men's Swimming (includes Army/Navy) - Princeton
Women's Swimming (includes Army/Navy) - Princeton
Men's Indoor Track and Field (incl. Navy) - Princeton
Women's Indoor Track and Field (incl. Navy) - Cornell
Wrestling - Cornell
Baseball - Princeton
Softball - Cornell and Brown
Golf - Princeton
Men's Lacrosse - Cornell and Princeton
Women's Lacrosse - Princeton
Men's Rowing - To be determined
Women's Rowing - To be determined
Men's Tennis - Harvard
Women's Tennis - Harvard
Men's Outdoor Track and Field - Cornell
Women's Outdoor Track and Field - Cornell

If I got that right, that's 31 different sports with an Ivy Champion.

Number of championships by school for 2003-2004 (includes ties):

Princeton - 9
Cornell - 7
Brown - 4
Penn - 4
Harvard - 3
Columbia - 2
Dartmouth - 2
Yale - 1

To be determined - 2

[Q]Tom Pasniewski 98 Wrote:


Men's Tennis - Harvard
Women's Tennis - Harvard
[/q]

By any chance were the individual champions named Biff and Buffy?

Nice piece of research, tracking down all the Ivy sports champions. I suspected Princeton was going to be the all-sports champion and that Cornell would be in the upper half. Who'd have thought Dartmouth would have fallen so far? (But on the other hand, what about sports where it came very close, such as lax and hockey?) What would be even more interesting would be to a) carry this back a decade, b) also track good seasons not just Ivy titles (winning 2/3 of the games, say?), c) look to success in post-season competition, d) roll in tangental sports that have championships such as polo (go, Red!) and rugby, e) count All-Americas. Then you could do a statistical correlation to see if you need so many measures of success. One also could compare men vs women (Cornell is pretty even here). Or you could have a degree-of-difficulty rating, meaning more credit for the Ivy basketball, football, hockey, maybe lacrosse championships -- the ones more likely to be noticed by the outside world. Oh, and you could compare victories in sports where the grads have the most financial success later in life and come back to endow buildings. That should keep us occupied till the opening faceoff. <g>

Seriously, thanks for the thoughtful presentation.

The Cornell equestrian team also won Ivy's this year (for the second straight year).

[Q]CowbellGuy Wrote:

The Cornell equestrian team also won Ivy's this year (for the second straight year).[/q]

There was a time through the 1970s when Cornell claimed to have more intecollegiate sports that any other school. That counted things such as polo, rugby, equestrian. Oddly, MIT was also up there, just not quite as prominent on the NCAA final four front.

I don't think Cornell makes the claim any more.

[Q]billhoward Wrote:

There was a time through the 1970s when Cornell claimed to have more intecollegiate sports that any other school. That counted things such as polo, rugby, equestrian. Oddly, MIT was also up there, just not quite as prominent on the NCAA final four front.

I don't think Cornell makes the claim any more. [/q]

I believe Harvard is currently making that claim.

The Cornell softball team (39-11) was shipped to the farthest bracket away from campus - the UCLA bracket - for the NCAA softball regionals and selected as the #6 seed in that bracket and will play #3 seed Long Beach State (48-11) at 12 Noon ET this Thursday, May 20th. Yes, that's 9 a.m. local time. Interestingly, of the between 112 and 120 regional softball games that will be played (14 or 15 games depending on outcomes in each regional), ESPN picked exactly three regional games to cover and they are all in the UCLA regional. It takes four wins to win a regional.

A Cornell win over Long Beach State would put Cornell on ESPN for Cornell's second game to be played Friday, May 21st, at 3 p.m. ET against the winner of the Central Michigan (32-17) - Alabama (42-18) game (the 2-7 seeds). And in fact if Cornell were to win its first three games, it would appear on all three of ESPN's televised regional games. Since the television commitment was in place before the brackets announced, I don't know if this says anything about the Cornell team.

There is a loser's bracket which allows for one loss. If Cornell loses it's opening game, they would play the loser of the Central Michigan-Alabama game at 10 p.m. ET on Thursday in their second game. A loss in that second game or thereafter eliminates Cornell from the tournament.

For the complete UCLA bracket:
[images.sportsline.com]

For the complete list of teams:
[www.ncaasports.com]

Just as with the hockey comparison, the majority of other schools have played more games than Cornell (50) - some in the 60's and one team 70 games.

cool
good luck RED! LGR!

[Q]Tom Pasniewski 98 Wrote:
For the complete list of teams:
[www.ncaasports.com][/q]
Why is Cornell listed as the AQ from the "Ivy Group"?

[Q]ugarte Wrote:

Tom Pasniewski 98 Wrote:
For the complete list of teams:
[www.ncaasports.com][/Q]
Why is Cornell listed as the AQ from the "Ivy Group"?[/q]

A good question and one that I don't necessarily have an answer for other than an inaccruate description as other media outlets use the term Ivy League champ which they are along with Brown. In a few sports, not all Ivy schools participate, and generally that is referred to as an Ivy Group if they are a standalone conference, rather than the Ivy League. All eight schools participate in softball so I thing group is just being used interchangably with League.

Cornell has a 17-game winning streak heading into the NCAA tournament. Cornell has never won a single NCAA playoff game. Something will have to give. The UCLA bracket is considered the second most difficult bracket as the winner of the bracket will automatically be the #2 seed in the Softball World Series regardless of who wins the bracket.