Going into this weekend's NESCAC Invitational tournament at Trinity, the women's squash team was looking to improve its No. 21 national ranking. But a 7-2 loss to No. 16 Amherst in the first round hurt the Jumbos' chances of gaining any ground.
Tufts did manage to pick up two victories in the subsequent consolation rounds at the tournament, defeating No. 25 Wesleyan, 9-0, and the No. 23 Hamilton Continentals, 5-4. The wins advanced the team's record to 8-9 on the season.
The Jumbos' only victories against Amherst came from senior co-captain and No. 8 seed Joelle Polivy and sophomore Micela Leis at the No. 9 spot. Polivy triumphed over Lord Jeff senior Margo Nathan in three straight games (9-1, 9-5, 10-8), while Leis downed sophomore Heather Nowak 9-1, 9-1, 9-5.
Junior Liz Thys had arguably the toughest match of the day for the Jumbos, battling in four sets against senior Lauren Coape-Arnold. Thys scored only four fewer total points than Coape-Arnold, but was unable to come up with a win, losing 9-7, 9-7, 8-10, 10-8.
At the No. 1 slot, Tufts sophomore Rebecca Rice fell in four games to junior Caroline Shannon 9-4, 5-9, 9-5, 9-5.
With the win, the Lord Jeffs completed a season sweep of the Jumbos, capping off a 6-3 win over Tufts in December.
Rice believes the Lord Jeffs outplayed Tufts, despite the two victories from Polivy and Leis and the two tough losses from Thys and herself.
"We were really hoping we'd have a good chance against them," Rice said. "They either wanted it more or we just didn't play hard enough."
On Saturday's consolation matches at Wesleyan, Tufts earned some redemption by trouncing the Cardinals 9-0. No Tufts player lost a single game to her opponent.
At No. 4, Thys did not surrender a point to Cardinal freshman Marguerite Weisman en route to her 9-0, 9-0, 9-0 victory. Tufts junior Jenny Lange almost executed a perfect sweep as well over sophomore Nicole Gray, picking up the 9-1, 9-0, 9-1 win.
Overall, the Jumbos won a total of 27 games to the Cardinals' zero, and tallied 243 overall points to Wesleyan's 59.
The lopsided win came as no surprise to the squad, as the Jumbos had already crushed Wesleyan by the same score in the first match of the season at the Boston Shootout.
"Playing Wesleyan was more like a warm up for us," senior co-captain Julia Avrutin said.
The Jumbos would need all the warm-up they could get, as the second match of the day, against Hamilton, ended up being a close contest featuring strong play from the top of the lineup.
Playing at No. 1 again, Rice topped freshman Madeleine Sullivan 9-2, 9-0, 9-5.
In the No. 2 position, Avrutin played perfectly against Continental sophomore Betsy McDermott, winning 9-0, 9-0, 9-0. No. 3 Tufts freshman Victoria Barba won against junior Lindsay Walsh 9-5, 9-4, 9-4, and Thys defeated junior Casey Cook in three games (9-3, 9-4, 9-2) to round out the top four.
The bottom of the Jumbo lineup struggled against the Continentals. Polivy, once again at the No. 8 slot, captured the game-winning match for the Jumbos by outlasting freshman Bailey Harris 9-2, 10-8, 7-9, 9-2 in the only match that went beyond three games.
Tufts had topped Hamilton two weeks earlier at the Mt. Holyoke/Smith Invitational, 6-3. Like Wesleyan, the Jumbos' earlier defeat of the Continentals set the precedent for another victory.
"Even though we had beaten both of those teams before, it was definitely a confidence booster," Avrutin said.
"We won both of those matches handily, and that put us in a good mood going into practice this week," Rice added.
Polivy had the most consistent performance this weekend for the Jumbos as the only team member to win all three of her matches.
"It was good for Joelle being a senior and a captain," Avrutin said. "It set a good tone for everyone else."
Despite finishing 2-1 at the NESCAC tournament, the wins over lower-ranked teams will probably not elevate the Tufts ranking going into the Howe Cup, the final tournament of the season, which will be played at Harvard in March.
"This weekend definitely didn't help our rankings," Avrutin said. "However, I think we have a really good chance at winning the third division at the Howe Cup."
Tonight, the Jumbos will take on No. 26 Wellesley on the road, followed by a match next Tuesday against No. 7 Brown to close out the regular season before the Howe Cup.
"We should be able to take the one against Wellesley pretty [easily]," Rice said. "[But] Brown is a really solid team, and they'll probably bring out their full ladder against us."
