Two hard-fought weekend games left little resolved for the women's basketball team's postseason future. But with a little help from their friends at Wesleyan, the NESCAC tournament remains a reachable goal.
After defeating Williams, 75-64, on Friday night, the Jumbos were once again done in by a second-half run, on Saturday, in a 69-67 loss to Middlebury. After leading by ten midway through the second half, Tufts fell victim to a 17-5 Middlebury run that brought the Panthers back into the game.
Trailing 67-61 in the final seconds, sophomore Hillary Dunn's three kept her team alive, and after a turnover, junior Katie Kehrberger had a chance to tie the game with a three in the final seconds.
The shot didn't fall, and the Jumbos dropped to 2-5 in conference play.
But qualifying for the NESCAC tournament is not completely in Tufts' hands - it also depends on how some of its rivals in the bottom half of the conference finish up the season. That's where the Wesleyan Cardinal comes into the picture.
Wesleyan was 2-3 heading into the past weekend - one game ahead of the Jumbos - but dropped both of its games and now finds itself in a three-way tie with Tufts and Trinity for seventh place.
On Friday, Wesleyan remained close in a clash with the first-place Amherst Lord Jeffs, and lost by just three points. But on Saturday, the Cardinal fell by ten points to Trinity, which entered the weekend at 0-5 but after two wins is back in the NESCAC playoff picture.
Only one of those teams, though, will get to go to the postseason, with next weekend marking the end of regular-season play. The pressure is on for qualification, but expectations will not be high for the number seven team in the tournament.
"Anything can happen in the tournament, and there'll be nothing to lose for us once we're in," sophomore center Emily Goodman said. "We just have to go out there and play."
Goodman says she expects to qualify.
Before that happens, Tufts has to get through next weekend. With 0-7 Connecticut College coming to town for a Saturday game, the real pressure will come on Friday night, and a date with - you guessed it - Wesleyan.
"It's good because they'll feel pressure on our court," Goodman said. "The pressure's more on them. They're going to be frantic."
If Friday's game turns out anything like the team's other conference contests - relatively close throughout - what the Jumbos will need to avoid are second-half runs by their opponents. A late 18-4 run by the Bowdoin Polar Bears was the killer two weekends ago, and Tufts actually led Amherst by a point at the half on Jan. 27 before a 9-0 Lord Jeffs' run turned the game around in the second half.
The Jumbos have been in the thick of every game, but have wound up on the losing end more often than not. Goodman felt that the Middlebury team that beat the Jumbos on Saturday was actually inferior to the Williams squad they defeated the night before.
"Williams was better than Middlebury overall," she said. "We were just a step too slow on Saturday. We were set to win that one."
Coach Janice Savitz and team members attributed much of Saturday's downfall to problems on the boards, especially on the offensive end. The Panthers pulled down 16 offensive rebounds, compared to Tufts' seven.
"If you look at the difference in offensive rebounds, we gave up too many second chances," Savitz said.
But the Jumbos' weekend did have its positives, not the least of which was a convincing win over the Williams Ephs. Tufts led by as many as 13 at one point in the second half Friday, getting scoring from a variety of sources. While Goodman, the NESCAC's top scorer, led the team with 23, all nine of the Jumbos who played scored.
Sophomore point guard Hillary Dunn chipped in 11 points, three steals, and six assists, while Katie Kerhberger scored ten points on 5-13 shooting.
Perhaps most importantly, the Jumbos outrebounded Williams after having been defeated on the boards in all but one of their previous conference games.
With more athletes contributing and more success on the boards (granted, the Ephs are a small squad), Tufts found itself at 2-4 and having completed the first part of its weekend challenge.
But it was a different story against Middlebury on Saturday, when Tufts continued to benefit from different sources - forward Jayme Busnengo shot 4-7 for nine points while Shira Fishman dished out eight assists for the second straight night. It was the late defensive collapse, though, that finished off the Jumbos.
"They hit shots when it really counted and we just couldn't hold onto the lead," Goodman said.
Sophomore Erin Harrington, one of the team's few offensive threats heading into the weekend, struggled in both games, shooting a combined 2-16.
Wesleyan now looms on the horizon, and the Jumbos will take today off before practicing the rest of the week. The Cardinal comes to Cousens at 7 p.m. on Friday, and Goodman thinks that correcting the mistakes made against Middlebury will go a long way - hopefully, as far as the NESCAC Tournament.
