The Red will look to down Ivy rival Columbia for the second time in a week when Cornell rolls into New York City for the second matchup of the Ivy season. Cornell will take on the Lions at 7 p.m. tomorrow, then play a non-conference match against Long Island University on Sunday at 2 p.m.

Cornell (2-7, 1-0 Ivy) won its Ivy opener over the Lions (5-4) in a straight-sets victory at home last Saturday. Although Columbia did not manage to win a game in the match, the battle was more back-and-forth than the score reveals. The Lions held the lead in the first and third games of the match but Cornell was able to rally and take both frames to get off to a good start to the Ivy season.

Bryan Scales enters his 11th season as head coach of the men’s soccer team boasting a team with 11 seniors on the roster. Last year, his squad finished with a 7-9-1 overall record after some inconsistent play in the Ivy League led to a 1-5-1 in-conference mark and landed Cornell in second-to-last place in the league.

The coaching staff believes that, with the abundance of seniors on the roster, the 2008 squad will have the experience and composure necessary to compete for the Ivy League title.

“I think every year our goals are probably the same,” said assistant coach Joe Schneck. “At the end of the day, you want to make the National tournament.”

Senior co-captain Joe Yonga has perfected a certain style of leadership, an expansion on the idea of leading by example. Yonga does everything and goes everywhere, trying to show his teammates the way in all aspects of the game.

The self-described jack-of-all-trades came to Cornell as a center midfielder. After coming off the bench in the first two games his freshman year, he has started every game since.

And as the former Bio major has exchanged that field for Economics, circumstances have moved Yonga to the backfield — where he serves as the Red’s defensive anchor.

One must regard 2007 as an anomaly when taking stock of Deitre Collins-Parker’s extensive success at the helm of Cornell volleyball. The head coach was a two-time collegiate player of the year at the University of Hawaii and has led the Red to three Ivy League titles and two national tournament showings in four years.

But after losing 10 seniors from the 2005 and 2006 teams, Collins-Parker faced a tough rebuilding mission in the 2007 season. The team finished with an unimpressive 9-16 record — far off the 18-9 mark set in 2006. There were some bright spots in the season, however. Junior libero Megan Mushovic was named first team all-Ivy and senior middle blocker Emily Borman was named to the second team.

Rebuilding isn’t a new concept to Collins-Parker, however.

In each of the past two seasons, Cornell has finished runner-up in the Ivy League standings. This year the field hockey team is looking to take that next step. So far, so good. The Red has gotten off to a 4-4 start, with a 2-0 record in the Ivy League. Though the team hasn’t won the Ivy title in 18 years, the opening victories are definitely a step in the right direction.

“We’ve really had a promising start in our Ivy League season, getting by Columbia in Connecticut and taking a win against Penn at home,” said assistant coach Ellen Davies.

After dropping to third place in the CSFL last season following an undefeated run to the national championship in 2006, the sprint football team is looking to return to glory. Despite a season-opening loss to Penn, the Red rebounded with a 35-0 victory over Mansfield and now has the pieces in place for a successful run through its conference schedule.

Cornell (1-1, 0-0 CSFL) began the season with eleven returning starters, and brings back 22 varsity lettermen. The squad has experienced leadership in the three senior captains: quarterback Zak Dentes, wide receiver Michael Brennan and linebacker John Parke.

If slow and steady always wins the race, things are looking good for the men’s cross country program. In the past five seasons, the team has climbed from eighth to seventh to sixth to fifth to second place at Heps, the Ivy League championship.

Last year’s runner-up finish was the best for the squad in 15 years, and the men enter the 2008 season on a tremendous wave of momentum with many experienced legs.

“Every year that I’ve been here we’ve been better the next year,” said assistant coach Robert Johnson. “It took a long time to get there, but hopefully that trend continues. The better you get, the harder it is to be satisfied.”

Stepping onto a football field as the starting quarterback of the home team may be a lofty, cliché dream of college athletes. For senior Zak Dentes, it will seem all too familiar. This season is the third year in a row he has done it.

Although thrice named the starting quarterback of the sprint football team, this season Dentes has acquired a new title — team co-captain.

“Last season, the team voted for the three captains, and that’s something I’m really proud of,” Dentes said. “I have my team’s support, so really, I’m just looking to continue to do more of the same.”

“More of the same” for Dentes means not only unflappable leadership, but outstanding individual accomplishments and accolades.

When the women’s field hockey team defeated Princeton last year for the first time since 1990, you wouldn’t have found its junior co-captain celebrating with the entire squad for long. Instead, Belen Martinez could be found shedding tears of joy while relaying the good news to her parents on the phone. For Martinez, the sport of field hockey is much more than a hobby, it is part of her identity.

In the past five years, the women’s cross country team has finished in the bottom half of the Ivy League standings all but once — a third-place finish in 2006. Last year, the team sunk to seventh place in the ancient eight, its worst finish in years. The Red had not finished that low at Heps since 1989, when the team finished seventh in a 10-team field that included Army and Navy. Despite the team’s recent struggles, the Red appears poised to restore pride to a program that captured four Ivy League championships during the ’90s.