Headliners

KHALIFA

Photo Courtesy Columbia Athletics

Osama Khalifa ’18 won the College Squash Association individual championship, hosted by Dartmouth on March 5, defeating Rochester’s Mario Yanez in three sets (11–1, 11–6, 11–5) to become Columbia’s first squash national champion.

The championship capped an impressive season for Khalifa, who won 15 of his 16 matches and avenged his only loss by beating Harvard’s Saadeldin Aboudaish in the team nationals. He was a First Team All-American for the third consecutive year.

Khalifa is the second member of his family to win the CSA individual national title. His older brother Amr Khalifa, who competed for St. Lawrence University, won the crown in 2013.

Columbia’s men’s squash team finished fourth in the nation after having climbed as high as second in the rankings earlier in the season, while the women’s team finished the season ranked eighth.

ZIMMERMAN

Photo Courtesy Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association

Camille Zimmerman ’18, who led the Ivy League in scoring and rebounding and was a unanimous choice for the All-Ivy League First Team, has been named Women’s Player of the Year by the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association. She is the first Columbia woman to receive the honor and joins three Columbia men: three-time recipient Jim McMillian ’70, John Azary ’51 and Chet Forte ’57.

“It’s an honor to be selected for this award,” Zimmerman said at the awards presentation on April 26. “There are a lot of really good schools and really good players here, so to be selected amongst them is really awesome.”

Her coach, Megan Griffth ’07, says: “I’ve never second-guessed Camille’s commitment to wanting to be great. We talk a lot about chasing greatness, and I really believe that this young woman does that every day.”

Zimmerman ranked 10th in the nation in scoring with 22.5 ppg and was among the top 50 in the country in eight statistical categories. She set a Columbia single-season scoring record with 608 points, surpassing the mark of 598 set by Ellen Bossert ’86 in 1985–86. Her career total of 1,408 points is just 39 shy of the school record of 1,447, held by Ula Lysniak BC’87, TC’94.

The highlight of Zimmerman’s season came on January 27 in Hanover, N.H., when the 6-foot-1 guard/forward posted career highs of 37 points, 19 rebounds and 4 steals in a 91–88 quadruple- overtime victory over Dartmouth, which matched the longest game in Ivy League women’s basketball history.