The Jumbos' dream of a NESCAC championship was suffocated by an avalanche of first-half goals in Tufts' first-round game against Wesleyan on May 1. Tufts' second-half comeback was not enough, and the Cardinals won 9-7 to eliminate the Jumbos. Tufts finished its season with a mark of 9-6 (5-5 NESCAC).
Wesleyan was also responsible for knocking the Jumbos out of last year's tournament in another heartbreaker that featured a Cardinal game-winner with only seconds left.
This year's playoff game was a virtual replay of when the teams played four days earlier. In both games, Wesleyan entered the locker room at half time with a 7-1 lead, led by the jaw-dropping play of sophomore goalie Charlie Congleton. In both games, the Cardinals managed to stave off ferocious second-half comebacks to hang on to the lead.
Wesleyan ran a tightly-packed zone to stop the Jumbo attack, and Tufts coach Mike Daly recognized its success, as well as Congleton's outstanding play.
"I'd like to say we were shooting poorly," Tufts coach Mike Daly said, "but we must recognize the effort and play of their defense and the fact that Wesleyan was undefeated with Congleton in net until the NESCAC championship game."
As a result of the loss, Tufts was knocked out of contention for the NCAA championships. Wesleyan would go on to upset Amherst in the NESCAC semifinals before falling to Middlebury 9-5 in the finals. The Cardinals still gained an at-large bid to the national tournament.
As of press time, both Wesleyan and Middlebury were still alive and preparing for a rematch in the NCAA quarterfinals on May 18.
"It's crushing to finish the season like that," sophomore long-stick midfielder Brett Holm said. "The way we underachieved is very frustrating and disappointing."
Underachieving is the word almost all the Jumbos use to describe their season. Heading into the spring, Tufts boasted an All-American at attack, midfield, and defense, and a roster of supporting talent that other teams could only envy and fear, if Tufts was anywhere on the schedule.
Things were rolling along as planned in the early going as Tufts jumped out to a 4-0 record against non-conference teams. Mar. 30 marked the first big test, as Tufts took on conference foe and fellow top-twenty team Amherst College.
That was the game in which the Jumbos demonstrated what they should have been capable of all year. Tufts crushed the Lord Jeffs, 9-2, in a lopsided blowout. At one point after that win, the Jumbos were ranked as the No. 3 team in the country.
The game, however, may have taken just as great a toll on Tufts as it did on Amherst. All-American senior attackman and defending NESCAC Player of the Year Bryan Griffin went down in the second half with a torn meniscus. He would miss the next four games with the injury, during which time the Jumbos lost their first three games of the season.
Things would only get worse, as junior defenseman Ave Cook, one of the team's other two All-Americans, suffered a hamstring injury on Apr. 6 in an 8-5 loss to Bowdoin. Even when Griffin returned for an Apr. 16 win over Colby, it was clear that the team was still not playing up to expectations.
"Obviously, a couple of injuries hurt us," senior co-captain Devin Clarke said. "When it came down to it though, it wasn't that. It was just the build up of a lot of little things. Once we started in that rut, we could never get out."
After the first Wesleyan loss, a 10-9 heartbreaker on Apr. 27, the team faced the once-seemingly absurd prospect of missing the playoffs altogether. Still, the Jumbos came through in the last game of the year, notching an impressive overtime victory over Connecticut College on the strength of Clarke's four goals, including the winner 1:17 into overtime.
Down the stretch, Clarke was the go-to guy for the Jumbos, tallying nine goals in the final two regular season games of the season. He would go on to be named NESCAC co-player of the year along with Amherst sophomore Derek Cherney.
"Looking back, I think how we ended up was disappointing because we definitely had the talent," Clarke said. "I'm disappointed we couldn't win a few games down the stretch that mattered most."
Still, the lacrosse program's recent ascendance to national prominence doesn't look like it's subject to change.
The team will graduate Clarke, Griffin, midfielder Jordan Guynn, defenseman Joe Mead, and goalies Andy Starr and Luke Chicco, but has a deep well of talent and a promising freshman class.
"Our expectations will remain high," Daly said. "We will continue to put pressure on ourselves to compete in the top five schools in country. We want the pressure of high expectations and we will meet those expectations."
Midfielder and face-off phenom Rory Doucette will captain the team in his final year. Daly's recruiting record speaks for itself, and players still find positives to take out of a seemingly disappointing season.
"Our finish was very disappointing - we had much higher goals," junior attackman Mike O'Brien said. "But our freshmen are all coming along well, and next year we'll have a ton of seniors so hopefully the leadership will be there too."
"We all learned a lot about being a team," Holm said. "We'll have a huge chip on our shoulder to prove that Tufts lacrosse is not a group of underachieving guys but a group of overachieving guys."
