After a week long hiatus due to Massachusetts' abnormal weather patterns, the women's lacrosse team was set to face two extremely stiff competitors this weekend in the two time defending national champion Middlebury Panthers and the Colby White Mules, who are ranked 14th in the country.
The Jumbos traveled to Waterville, ME on Saturday to take on the Mules and try to end their two-game NESCAC losing streak. Colby senior co-captain and all time leading scorer Ally King caught a pass in the Tufts zone with just 9.3 ticks left, with the game knotted at ten all.
King fired a low liner past lunging Tufts backup netminder, sophomore Maureen Wiley, to secure the 11-10 win for Colby. The goal was the 97th of King's career, increasing her four year point total to 189. The loss dropped the Jumbos to 4-3 on the season, holding them winless at 0-3 in the conference.
"I think we definitely did a lot of good things on Saturday," senior co-captain Ari Kristan said. "An 11-10 loss against Colby is nothing to be ashamed of, they are a great team. I feel that our losses are still all mental; we just need to learn to finish games. Hopefully that will come soon, very soon."
Both teams came out looking strong, and essentially went goal for goal for the entire first frame. But as the first half buzzer sounded, the Jumbos found themselves on the short end of a 6-5 mark.
"We did an awesome job on defense, we threw the ball away a little but we were controlled for the most part, we just needed to settle down more," junior attack and leading scorer Willow Hagge said.
At halftime, coach Carol Rapoli emphasized the same points that she has been for the past three games.
"Coach Rapoli basically told us to go back to the basics, take care of the ball and make hard front cuts," Hagge said. "We needed to focus a lot on our fundamentals, and just dig in and keep playing like we did in the first."
The second half saw more of the same action from both squads. Each came out with a newfound intensity, notching goals early and often. But as in the first half, every goal by one team was soon matched by a goal by the other. With five minutes left, coach Rapoli pulled starting keeper Kristan -- who had given up ten goals on the day and only made five saves -- in place of a fresh Wiley.
"I think that coach thought that Ari hadn't been playing at her best throughout the game, and she wanted to give Mo [Wiley] a shot to secure the game for us," Hagge said.
Then with nine seconds to go until a potential overtime, King laced a shot into the back of the net to give Colby the victory.
"In the second half, we definitely did a much better job in general, but they scored a bad goal at a bad time. I feel like if the game was just two minutes longer, we would have won," Hagge said.
Hagge paced the Jumbos with three goals, including the game tying score with 2:30 to play in regulation. Her three goals increase her team leading total to 21, and her team leading point total to 31. Freshman Meredith Harris added two scores and two assists for Tufts, giving her an impressive 11goals and five assists in her first year as a Jumbo.
In what would have been Tufts' toughest match up of the season, the Middlebury Panthers and their 41-game winning streak came to town on Friday only to turn straight back around due to the four inches of rain on Kraft Field.
The Panthers, currently ranked first in the country, have won three of the past four NCAA Div. III National Championships and have not lost a game since May 20, 2000. The Panthers have steamrolled through every opponent thus far this season, including a 16-5 pounding of the Amherst Lord Jeffs, who are currently ranked third in the nation. The Panthers offense has netted an average of 17 goals per game, while the defense has surrendered a stingy 4.72 goals per game.
The game has been rescheduled to today at 4 p.m. at Kraft Field, opening what promises to be the toughest seven-day stretch of the season for the Jumbos. They face the Panthers today, then travel to Wesleyan on Wednesday to square off against the Cardinals, and head to Bates on Saturday to play the Bearcats. The team returns home a week from today to face arch rival and 5th ranked Williams.
More from The Tufts Daily
