Williams' Ephs blank Jumbos

In a tight game that featured two nationally ranked women's soccer teams, Tufts came away with the short end of the stick. The Jumbos lost a hard-fought battle to Williams 2-0 at home on Saturday. After a scoreless first half, the Ephs took a 1-0 lead in the 57th minute, and added a second goal on a breakaway with 3:15 left to ice it.

"Two really good teams played against each other," coach Martha Whiting said. "And even the best teams lose games sometimes. But it's one of those games where it's a great match-up, and only one team can win."

The Jumbos drop to 8-3 overall with the loss, but remain in first place in the NESCAC, knotted in a three-way tie with Williams and Amherst at 5-2.

Williams had the edge early on Saturday, as the Jumbos seemed to be playing a little tentatively in the opening minutes.

"With Williams, we always work them up to be a bigger team than they are," senior co-captain Alle Sharlip said. "So I think we started the game nervous. They're good, but they're not unbeatable, and I think we were putting them up higher than they really are."

Both teams had their chances in the first half, and even though Tufts held a 14-3 advantage in shots taken in the period, the Ephs had the more dangerous looks.

"They came out ready to play, and we didn't," senior co-captain Cara Glassanos said. "We waited until the last ten minutes of the first half to really play hard. But we had plenty of chances, and it could have gone either way."

Williams looked determined to put one away as the first half wound down, picking up four corner kicks in a three-minute stretch, including three on successive plays. But the Tufts defense held, and finally cleared the ball with just under nine minutes remaining in the period.

From there, it was all Tufts, as the Jumbos carried the play through the end of the half. The team had some of its best scoring chances in that stretch, including three shots by sophomore Becky Greenstein _ one of which hit off the bottom of the crossbar but somehow managed to bounce out.

"Parts of the game we played really well," Sharlip said. "There were some parts of the game that I thought we did a great job, but other parts we just lost it."

The Ephs were a tough team to handle throughout the game, but Tufts proved their ability to carry the play, according to Whiting.

"It's very hard to sustain lots and lots of consistent pressure against a team like that," Whiting said. "We had a lot of dangerous chances, and we did carry the play a lot, but we were making them look better than they were in the first half."

The second half saw more tough play on both sides. Although Tufts looked stronger, it was Williams that finally broke through, scoring the game's first goal in the 57th minute, as sophomore Hannah Stauffer netted her third score of the year. Stauffer got control of a deflected ball near the top of the box, and sent a low shot across to the far corner, just beyond the reach of a diving Meg McCourt.

"We had our ups and downs throughout the game, and it basically came down to who capitalized on opportunities," senior Elizabeth Tooley said. "We both had some opportunities throughout the game, and they capitalized. But we played well and it was a pretty even match."

The Jumbos stepped it up again after the goal, and had a number of good chances to tie the game. But the Eph defense refused to give in, doing a good job keeping Tufts off the board. Sophomore goalkeeper Lindsey Starner was impressive in the net, making 10 saves to earn her fifth shutout of the year.

"At the end, we were pressuring a lot," Whiting said. "Our second half was a lot better than our first. We sustained a lot more pressure. We made some adjustments, and we started to settle the ball down and play it quickly, and that's when we played well."

With ten minutes to play, Whiting put junior striker Jess Trombly back into the game, bringing out defensive back Abby Herzberg to give the Jumbos an extra forward in hopes of netting the equalizer. While the move was the right one, it ended up backfiring for Tufts, as Williams was able to score on a breakaway against just three defenders.

Senior Stacey Starner, Williams' all-time leading scorer, added to her total with the insurance goal in the 87th minute. After a Tufts corner kick, Eph sophomore defender Julie O'Donnell got possession of the ball and made a long run up the right side. She fed it to Starner, who finished off the play to give her team a 2-0 lead and put the game out of reach.

"We're both really good teams, and they just got the better of us today," Sharlip said. "Just like we could have done it to them on a different day. It was like they had two chances and got two goals, and we had a bunch of chances and no goals."

In a very physical game on both sides, junior defender Jess Lovitz was given a yellow card in the 79th minute after bumping heads with Stauffer while jumping up for a ball. On the day, Tufts was whistled for eight fouls, while Williams had seven.

Despite the loss, the Jumbos are in a good position in the NESCAC, having already clinched a spot in the postseason tournament. Tufts will be rooting for Amherst to knock off the Ephs next weekend, as a Lady Jeff's win would give the Jumbos the inside track to the number-one seed. The Jumbos beat Amherst 1-0 earlier this year, and would get the nod if the two teams ended up in a tie.

"We're definitely in good position," Whiting said. "We want to finish in the top three in NESCAC. We still have a shot at first, and that would be amazing, but finishing second or third would still be great."

Tufts will travel to Middlebury next weekend to take on the 8-3-1 Panthers. Tufts beat them 3-1 at home last year, but lost twice on the road in 2000.

"Middlebury will be a very tough game," Glassanos said. "It's going to be a long week of preparation, and we're going to have to come out just as fired up as we have for every other game, if not more. It's just a matter of pulling the little things together, and not letting this game get to us."