Tufts prepares for battle with Williams

With five teams sitting in first place atop the NESCAC, the seventh place women's soccer team will travel to Williamstown, Mass. tomorrow to play what is undoubtedly its most important game of the season against the Williams College Ephs. The Ephs, Tufts biggest rival in the conference, are one of the five teams atop the standings, and a win for the Jumbos would put them right back in the thick of things in the race for first place.

"We're working on a little bit of everything this week" coach Martha Whiting said. "We're going to focus on team defense, playing together as a group, and winning the 50-50 battles for the ball."

The Jumbos went 1-1 against the Ephs last year, falling in the regular season 2-0 but getting revenge when it really counted, in the NESCAC championship game, with a 3-0 shutout.

After losing a host of starters from last season, including all time leading scorer Stacey Starner and sweeper Colleen Doody, the Ephs haven't really missed a beat this year. Led by senior co-captain and 2002 All-American second team recipient Hannah Stauffer, 2002 NESCAC first team sophomore goalie Lindsay Starner, and last year's NESCAC rookie of the year Elise Henson, the Ephs will certainly pose a huge threat to the Jumbos.

"They lost a lot of very good players last year," Whiting said. "But they have a lot of really good players that are stepping up and assuming their roles."

But Tufts will most certainly be up to the task. The Jumbos will look to the leadership of the NESCAC player of the week and leading scorer, junior Jen Baldwin, who is currently third in the conference in points and goals with 19 and seven, and senior speedster Jessica Trombly, who is second on the Jumbos with five goals and 12 points.

In addition, sophomore Sarah Callaghan, who scored one goal and assisted on the other in Tufts 2-1 victory over Wesleyan on Tuesday, looks to wreak havoc at both forward and center midfield, a position she played for the first time on Tuesday.

The back four, the team's backbone, has been consistently solid all season and will need to maintain their ground against the powerful Ephs offense for the Jumbos to have success. Williams is currently second in the conference with 14 goals scored in only six games, an average of 2.3 per contest. The group, led by senior co-captains Abby Herzberg and Jess Lovitz, will look to control the tempo and not let any direct shots through the line at junior keeper Meg McCourt.

The Jumbos have been forced to shuffle around their defense quite a bit since the beginning of the season. With the injury to defensive center midfielder junior Alina Schmidt, who will suit up this weekend, Whiting has been forced to place sweeper Catherine Benedict in her spot, shift senior co-captain left fullback Abby Herzberg into the middle, and insert sophomore first year player Caite Meeker in at left fullback.

"If we can sort out our defense, the offense will come," Whiting said. "We usually focus on defense at the beginning of the year, but since we have made some changes since the beginning of the season, we're just going to practice everything again today."

The injury plagued midfield will face the toughest task of the day, trying to stay back on defense to quell any Williams attacks and then quickly transition the ball and create opportunities for the offense.

"I'm not too worried," Whiting said. "These girls understand there is a lot on the line, and I know that they are going to go out and give it everything they have."

Game time is set for 2 p.m. on Saturday.