After defeating Bowdoin on Wednesday, the volleyball team found itself trailing NESCAC-leading Colby by half a game going into the final NESCAC Weekend at Wesleyan. To earn home-court advantage, the Jumbos needed to win big and receive some help in the form of a slip from the Mules.
The Jumbos took care of their business, winning the final two matches of the regular season 3-0. Unfortunately, so did Colby, winning its final three matches, including a 3-2 win over Williams. With the victories, the Mules improved to 10-0 on the season, earning the top seed and home-court advantage for the NESCAC Tournament. To wrestle away the top spot, the Jumbos would have needed Colby to falter twice this weekend, an unlikely task as Colby was scheduled to play winless Hamilton.
"Colby's been so strong and consistent all year, so in all honesty I didn't expect them to lose," coach Cora Thompson said.
While the Jumbos paid attention to the Colby matches, they didn't get caught scoreboard-watching.
"We would know who was facing Colby and we would hope they would win, but honestly, we were not watching that closely," freshman Kaitlin O'Reilly said. "We were more concerned with our playing and winning our critical match-ups."
With the Mules taking care of the top seed, the Jumbos secured the second seed in the tournament with a 9-1 record by cruising past Bowdoin, Trinity and Wesleyan in their final three matches of the regular season.
"We played well," Thompson said. "We've been mixing it up quite a bit lately. So I thought in general, we had a better sense of consistency, which is good going into the playoffs."
The Jumbos achieved that consistency, despite playing without junior outside hitter Kelli Harrison, who missed another weekend with a concussion.
On Saturday afternoon, it was junior Dana Fleisher who stepped up on the outside in Harrison's absence to lead the team to a 3-0 victory over the Wesleyan Cardinals. Fleisher collected eight kills to tie for the Jumbo lead with sophomore Katie Wysham, who had four block assists to go along with her eight kills.
O'Reilly also had a strong match, recording 29 assists, 10 digs, a kill and three aces.
"Wesleyan is a tough team," Thompson said. "They are very emotional. They go on runs, getting high and low. We did a good job of staying stable with our play."
After a tight 30-28 opener, Tufts closed out the match with two 30-24 games, dropping the Cardinals to 3-7 in the NESCAC.
The match was a return to NESCAC play for the Jumbos after last weekend's trip to Atlanta for the Emory National Invitational, where the intensity of play was noticeably higher.
"The pace of the game felt a lot slower after playing Emory and Millikin," O'Reilly said.
The win came on the heels of a Friday night 3-0 victory over Trinity. The Jumbos won by an almost identical score, winning the first game 30-26 before closing out the Bantams with two 30-24 decisions.
"That was important for us to come off that long bus ride to Connecticut and be ready to go," Thompson said.
This time it was sophomore Kay Lutostanski spearheading the Jumbo offense with 13 kills. Wysham had another solid game with 10 kills, three assists and four blocks. Freshman Natalie Goldstein led a pack of four Jumbos with double digit kills with 19.
Goldstein returned to the libero position after missing Wednesday's Bowdoin matchup due to a class conflict. Her absence left the team without three players, as Harrison and sophomore Cecilia Allende continued to sit out due to injury.
"Our goal was to go up there and not skip a beat, even though we were missing players," Thompson said.
Sophomore Stephanie Viola replaced Goldstein at libero, and freshman Caitlin Dealy paced the Jumbo attack with nine kills, as the Jumbos moved past the struggling Polar Bears. Bowdoin's only conference win this year came against Hamilton in a battle for the NESCAC basement.
"Bowdoin is definitely a weaker team," Thompson said. "They're significantly weaker. So it was a must to win in three [straight games]."
The Jumbos looked well on their way to doing so after winning the first two games 30-18 and 30-22, but they hit a snag in the third before pulling out a tight 31-29 win.
"We played okay in the first two games, but that last one, we let them control the speed of the game," O'Reilly said. "It was close, which it shouldn't have been."
With Dealy leading the Jumbos in kills against Bowdoin, Lutostanski doing so against Trinity, and Fleisher pacing the attack against Wesleyan, the Jumbos had three different outside hitters stepping up in Harrison's absence.
Since Harrison got elbowed in the head in practice on Oct. 14, Thompson has mixed in all three of her outside hitters, and the Jumbos have responded by going 8-2.
"It's great to have three quality backups to Kelli at outside hitter," Thompson said. "We haven't skipped a beat at all. All three have done a great job."
Harrison will remain sidelined for the NESCAC Tournament, so Thompson will once again be mixing her lineup as the Jumbos fight for a conference championship.
The Jumbos will travel to Colby on Friday to take on second-ranked Amherst in the first round of the tournament.
