Sports
The Columbia High School Cougars now compete in the Super Essex Conference, following a reorganization of sports leagues in Northern New Jersey by the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. The school had previously competed in the Iron Hills Conference before the 2010 realignment. Prior to 1972, the school competed in New Jersey's Big Ten Conference. With 1,295 students in grades 10 to 12, Columbia was classified by the NJSIAA for the 2011-12 school year as North II, Group IV, a category that included schools with enrollment of 1,200 to 3,015 in those three grades. Many of the teams are successful on the local, state and national level.
Ultimate was invented at The Columbia High School in 1968. The ultimate team has won the state championship 11 times in the tournament's 13-year history. The team has won the championship every year since 2001 giving it a 12-year winning streak. The team has attended the Paideia cup tournament in Atlanta, Georgia, a nationally competitive tournament, every year since its inception in 2006, as well as the Amherst Invitational in Massachusetts. Last year, the men's team gained recognition in town hall meetings and Board of Education meetings after winning the 2008 High school Eastern championship on May 11, 2008. The women's team has won the state championship every year that it has been contested, beginning in 2007. However, the team is not recognized as a sport by the school and does not receive funding by the district.
The school's fencing team (started in 1982) is one of the largest in the nation, having over 100 freshmen join the team in the last year alone. The boys team is consistently ranked among the top in the state, while the girls team has won the state championship 8 out of 10 years. The girls team record for the combined 1999-2005 seasons was 94-4. In 2006, the girls fencing team defeated Bernards High School 19-8 to win the NJSIAA 2006 Girls Team Fencing state tournament. Columbia won the 2007 Boys Team Fencing state championship with a 16-11 win over Voorhees High School. The team's head coach, Dr. Arthur Paulina, won his milestone 300th victory during the 06-07 season. In the 2008-09 season, the boys fencing team took home the épée state title. In the 2009-10 season, the girls team won District III, but finished 5th in the state, losing in the quarterfinals to Governor Livingston High School. The boys team won the Cetrulo Tournament and the NJSIAA/Bollinger District 3 championships, earning them a top seed going into the NJSIAA State Championship Tournament. The boys team won state championships for the first time since 2007 in a 15-12 win over Bernards High School. In the 2010-11 season, the girls placed No. 3 in the team state championships after defeating Governor Livingston High School in the consolation meet. The boys won their second consecutive state championship defeating Montclair High School (New Jersey) in the final by a 14-13 score. In the 2012 NJSIAA/Bollinger tournament, Columbia lost in the final to second-seeded West Morris Mendham High School by a score of 14-13, ending the school's 49-match winning streak.
The girl's track and field team won the New Jersey girl's indoor track relays in the winter of 2005. The boys track team placed 5th at the Nike Indoor Nationals in the 4x400 meter relay in 2009, making it the best in history for Columbia boys and breaking a school record. In the 2010 outdoor season, both the girl's and boy's teams went to the New Balance Outdoor Nationals, where the girls team won, making them #1 in the country, and the boys placed 6th.
The boy's soccer team is coached by Gene Chyzowych, one of the most successful active scholastic soccer coaches in the nation. The 2007 boys soccer team won the North II, Group IV state sectional championship with a 1-0 win over Westfield High School in the tournament final.
The school's cross-country team won the Group IV boys title in 1960 and has had a number of individual state champions. In 2008, a senior girl won the Essex County Championships.
Columbia's Varsity football team has been notably unsuccessful in recent years, winning only two games over a span of five seasons, including three consecutive winless seasons from 2005–2007, but broke their 45-game losing streak with a 48-0 victory over Dickinson High School in the last game of the 2008 season. In 2009, The team finished 8-1 in the regular season, but lost to Westfield High School 41-6 in the first round of playoffs.
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Famous quotes containing the word sports:
“Short of a wholesale reform of college athletics—a complete breakdown of the whole system that is now focused on money and power—the women’s programs are just as doomed as the men’s are to move further and further away from the academic mission of their colleges.... We have to decide if that’s the kind of success for women’s sports that we want.”
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