There's still a game left to play, but for the women's lacrosse team, the season all but ended on Sunday.
In an odd twist of events, the Jumbos lost in overtime to 1-7 Connecticut College on Saturday, but because of Trinity's concurrent loss to Bowdoin, Tufts still gained the seventh spot in the NESCAC postseason tournament. Tufts then fell 13-7 to second-seeded Amherst on Sunday in the first round, effectively ending the Jumbos' season.
Tufts, whose record is now 6-7 overall and 3-6 in the NESCAC, will still play one more match in a makeup game scheduled for today at home against non-league opponent Babson.
Over the weekend, the Jumbos traveled from Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut to Amherst in order to take on the Lord Jeffs in the first round of the seven-team tournament on Sunday. Amherst played host to the Jumbos because of its higher seed, and dispatched the Jumbos in a rematch from the teams' first meeting just six days ago, when the two teams played each other in the regular season. Amherst also won that contest, 14-10.
Despite losing for the second time in a week to the defending Division III national-champions, along with dropping their last three league games of the year, the Jumbos had reasons to be positive on Sunday.
"Amherst was the NCAA national champions, and I thought we played a tough game," sophomore defender Hillary Pentz said. "In general, I don't think the team has regrets about our play on Sunday. Our first half against Amherst was exactly how we had wanted it, because we didn't allow many turnovers and stuck to our game plan."
The Jumbos built a solid lead early in the first half, going up 2-0 with 6:22 elapsed. Tufts led by as much as 4-1 through much of the period. However, Amherst came back to tie the match at 4-4 with 11 minutes remaining in the frame, thanks to the third of Amherst senior tri-captain Liz Martin's five goals on the day. Junior Ashley Harmeling, who also netted five for Amherst, put the Lord Jeffs up for good with just under 11 minutes left before the half. Together, Martin and Harmeling accounted for ten of Amherst's 13 goals.
The scoring was more evenly distributed for the Jumbos, with senior Kristen Saldarelli scoring twice, and senior Lauren Peach, juniors Willow Hagge and Jen Griffin, sophomore Dena Miller, and freshman Sarah Bromley each scoring once for Tufts.
"It was the end of the year, and we wanted to go out there for the seniors and give them a good last game," Bromley said. "We wanted to give them a win."
Still, despite falling short in their effort, the Jumbos are confident they matched up well against Amherst and felt they played a good game against a team that last year went 18-2 in the regular season, and won the national title.
"We have more speed, but on the whole they have more composure," Pentz said. "[In Sunday's game], our attack was really composed and our defense was playing zone and was [adjusting] well. The only problem was, they seemed to be getting the draw more than us. In the last ten minutes of the game, they got up by two goals, and that was tough to come back from."
Although the Lord Jeffs trailed 6-5 at halftime, they outscored the Jumbos 7-2 in the second period en route to their victory. The win will send the Lord Jeffs to the NESCAC semifinals against Williams this weekend at Middlebury.
The Jumbos weren't nearly as sharp on Saturday in their final regular-season NESCAC match-up, a 10-9 overtime loss to Connecticut College. Conn. College, which ranks dead-last in offensive production and second to last in team defense in the NESCAC, almost put the game away in regulation, but Jumbo team-scoring leader Miller scored her fourth goal of the day with 36 seconds left to play to delay her squad's fate.
Despite trailing 3-0 halfway through the first half, Conn. College rallied back and found itself down only 4-3 at halftime. The Camels then outscored the Jumbos 6-5 in the second frame and scored again in overtime, sending them to their fourth consecutive victory. Conn. College finished 2-7 in league, but 8-8 overall.
Having lost to both Conn. College and Amherst twice in the past week, Tufts now finds itself the owners of a sub-.500 record. The Jumbos haven't had a losing season in 25 years, so although otherwise meaningless, today's game against Babson could give the team a chance to at least finish with an even mark of 7-7.
"We're playing this game because it was rescheduled," Pentz explained. "We still have to go out against Babson and play hard, but obviously after already playing in [the postseason tournament], the team really felt like our last few games were the last ones of the season."
