Perfection in league competition is one of the highest goals for any athletic team and the Columbia fencing squad is three wins away from accomplishing that feat. The Ivy Championship resumes this Sunday at Princeton, where the Lions will face off against archrival Harvard and upstarts in Brown and Yale.

After defeating Cornell, Princeton, and Penn last weekend in New Haven, the Light Blue women sit at 3-0 and the men at 2-0 heading into Sunday’s round-robin tournament. First up against Columbia will be the Crimson, the Lions’ stiffest competition of the entire tournament.

The Light Blue has a leg up on their rivals after Penn’s men’s and women’s squads defeated Harvard in the biggest upset of the Championships. With Columbia’s victories over the Quakers and at least one loss from every other team, the Light Blue sit in the driver’s seat heading into the weekend, knowing that, even with a loss, they will end up at worst co-champions.

For the women’s team, all three disciplines had strong showings last week at Yale with sabre going 23-4, épeé finishing 20-7, and foil amassing a 19-8 record. Freshmen contributors Martyna Urbanowicz, Nicole Ross, Abby Caparros, and Jackie Jacobson all had winning records in their first appearances in Ivy competition against some of the better teams in the Ancient Eight. Everything changes, however, when Harvard comes into the mix.

The Crimson have won a share of at least one Ivy title since 2002-03 when the Lions last swept the league crowns. In 2006, the Crimson ended up as NCAA Champions and Columbia must recognize that the losses to Penn a weekend ago will only fuel their fire to win a share of the Ivy title.

Columbia’s men’s squad thoroughly dominated its two matches against Penn and Princeton with a combined 36-18 record. Unlike the women, who have four freshmen starters, all of the Lion men have experience in league competition, despite graduating multiple All-Americans, and are sure to have last year’s 14-13 loss to Harvard on their mind when they arrive at Princeton on Sunday.

The final two matches of the day are against the Bears and Elis, both of whom sport losing records heading into the second half of Ivy play. Brown and Yale could play spoiler, however, as a win over the Lions would wreak havoc on the Light Blue’s chances for a championship.

Only three victories from a championship, Columbia’s pursuit of perfection resumes at Princeton on Sunday morning.