For the third straight time, the game came down to the wire. After holding the lead the entire game, Columbia (12-7, 1-2 Ivy) found itself up by just two with 32 seconds to play. This weekend, however, the Lions managed to pull out the narrow victory, defeating Cornell 61-56 for their first Ivy victory of the season. "This game, it was us in the driver seat and them having to make all the adjustments to fight back," junior point guard Brian Barbour said. It was a defensive matchup from the very beginning. Columbia built a 6-0 lead over the first five minutes and kept Cornell (6-11, 1-2 Ivy) from making a shot until senior guard Drew Ferry hit a jumper with 14:40 left in the first half. The teams continued to battle for baskets, but neither squad was having much luck. Between Ferry's shot and the 10-minute mark, each team had only one field goal. In the first 20 minutes of the game, the Big Red shot 27.6 percent from the floor and made just two of its 10 attempts from beyond the arc. The Lions were only a little better, making 32.3 percent of their field goals and 27.3 percent of their treys. The pace picked up a bit towards the end of the half, though, and the Light Blue took a 27-22 lead into the locker room. This was the third consecutive Ivy game in which Columbia led at the half, and, for a brief moment, it looked like it would be the third consecutive game in which Columbia gave its halftime lead away. Less than eight minutes into the second half, Cornell senior guard Chris Wroblewski hit two free throws to cut the Light Blue's lead to just one point. However, the home crowd breathed a collective sigh of relief just half a minute later when sophomore guard Meiko Lyles hit a three to put Columbia back up by four. "I think if we get a little more confident, then when we go up eight or 10 like that, we can ride those out," head coach Kyle Smith said after the game. "But we're not there yet, obviously, and we hit the road, so we'll definitely be challenged next week at Cornell." While that was Lyles' only three of the game, he was 7-for-15 overall—a great improvement over his 5-for-19 performance against Penn and Princeton. Lyles finished the game with 15 points, good for second best for Columbia. After Lyles' three-pointer, junior center Mark Cisco made two shots from the charity stripe and blocked a shot on the other end of the floor to help put the Light Blue up by eight. While the Big Red would get within two again, it was never able to close the gap. Cisco was the hero of the game for the Lions. He had a Levien Gym-record 20 rebounds and a game-high 18 points. "I think they [Cornell] were like -7 in rebounds, so I made myself think I was going to go in and get every rebound," Cisco said. It was Cisco's third double-double of the season. "He was a monster, man," Barbour said of Cisco. "Without Mark, they win that game by 10." Barbour finished the game with 14 points, six boards, and five assists. Due in large part to Cisco's strong play, the Light Blue dominated the boards, out-rebounding Cornell 45-29. Because of this rebounding advantage, the Lions had 14 second-chance points to the Big Red's nine, which was the exact difference in the final score. One area where Columbia struggled was breaking Cornell's press. The Lions had 18 turnovers in the contest, 12 of which came in the second half, when the Big Red was really putting the pressure on. "C-minus," Smith said of his team's response to Cornell's defensive pressure. "Eighteen turnovers. We had some careless ones that led to transition buckets for them." The Lions head up to Ithaca next weekend for a rematch with the Big Red. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m.