NEW YORK -- The question of when senior guard Megan Griffith would get her five points to get to the 1,000-point mark was answered with three seconds remaining in the first half.

With Griffith's milestone achieved, the question of if the Lions would come back to complete their first Ivy League sweep in nearly three years was answered in the first four minutes of the second half, when Columbia opened with an 11-2 run to take the lead for good.

The Lions ultimately defeated Princeton, 58-53, for Columbia's first home league sweep since February 27-28, 2004 against the same two opponents.

Columbia overcame an extremely cold start, shooting 2-for-11 over the first 12 minutes of the game, but Princeton only managed a 13-4 advantage over that span.

"I'm extremely proud of my team," head coach Paul Nixon said after the game. "They believed when we walked out of [Jadwin Gym] in the first meeting that we could win the second game. That's what sustained the team through the first ten minutes."

Columbia slowly came back to cut Princeton's halftime lead to 26-20, hitting 7-of-12 shots for the rest of the half, capped by Griffith's layup to end the half, giving her 1,001 career points.

"I had a rough start," Griffith admitted. "I was happy to get it out of the way in the first half and come out and get back to business in the second half."

With 11:38 remaining, Princeton cut the deficit to 37-36 on a jumper by Meagan Cowher, the league's leading scorer who was held in check by a combination of Chelsea Frazier and Becky Hogue, despite leading the Tigers with 16 points.

Brittney Carfora, who scored all 16 of her points in the second half, then put on a three-point shooting display.

Sandwiched around a layup by Hogue, Carfora, the leading three-point shooter in the Ivy League, hit three three-pointers over one minute and forty seconds to push the Columbia lead to 48-42.

Columbia (7-17, 3-7 Ivy League) led by as many as 10 points, 56-46, on a jumper by Griffith with little more than a minute to play and held on the rest of the way to capture its second straight win, surpassing both its overall victory total and Ivy League win total from a year ago.

Griffith finished the game with 10 points to give her 1,005 in her four-year career at Columbia, good for seventh on the all-time scoring list. She also finished with a season-high eight assists, which gives her 357 in her career, which is fourth all-time at Columbia.

"As much as 1,000 points is an individual achievement, Megan is very much a team player and she proved that tonight," Nixon said. "Now we can put the score of the game on the commemorative ball."

Carfora’s 16 points, including four-of-five from three-point range, led Columbia. In addition to her defense on Cowher, Frazier had 12 points, eight rebounds, two blocks and two steals in a season-high 37 minutes. Shasta Henderson added eight points and two steals for the Lions.

For Princeton (10-13, 4-5 Ivy League), Cowher had 16 points with 11 rebounds and Whitney Downs came off the bench to hit six-of-seven from the floor for 15 points.

Winners of three of its last four games, Columbia returns to action next Friday, February 23 at Levien Gym to face Brown. Tip-off is slated for 7 p.m.