Looking Back (oct. 21-27) | field hockey: tufts, 2 williams, 0
The Jumbos finally got the win that had eluded them for nearly two years on Saturday, besting a "holy Trinity" of NESCAC field hockey. While the league is, with few exceptions, competitive from top to bottom, Middlebury, Bowdoin and Williams have risen to the top, consistently appearing in the national top 10 and taking the top three spots on the league every year since 2000. Tufts has been right on their heels in the past few years, but finally broke through the smokescreen with a 2-0 win over the Ephs, ranked fourth in the nation, on Saturday.
A pair of sophomores, Marlee Kutcher and Brittany Holiday, scored to provide the only offense of the game on either side. The Jumbos took just seven shots, and capitalized on two of them. Senior co-captain Stacey Watkins fed Kutcher to put the Jumbos up 21 minuntes into the game, and 13 minutes into the second half, junior forward Ileana Casellas-Katz set up Holiday for her team-leading eighth assist of the season. Tufts senior co-captain Marilyn Duffy-Cabana recorded six saves and junior Katie Pagos came through with a key defensive save to shut out the dominating and physical Williams offense. The win was the Jumbos' eighth of the season, and moved their home record to 6-1.
In addition to bringing some bragging rights, the win also had heavy implications for league standings for the Jumbos heading into this weekend, which includes their final regular-season matchup on Saturday and the first round of the NESCAC tournament on Sunday. The loss dropped the Ephs a game behind Middlebury and Bowdoin and set the stage for some last-minute theatrics around the league, keeping the Jumbos' hopes for a first-round playoff game at home alive and putting the pressure on both Williams and Trinity to come up with wins this weekend to stay in the top four.
Looking Ahead (oct. 27-Nov. 1) | nescac cross country championships
The men's and women's cross country teams will head to Harkness Memorial State Park on Saturday for the NESCAC Championships. Both teams are looking to make a splash in the league, but for different reasons.
The men's team, after finishing behind five other NESCAC schools at the All-New England Championships three weeks ago, has an uphill climb if it hopes to defend its title, having won the event in each of the past three years. Seniors Justin Chung and Josh Kennedy will need help from sophomore Dave Sorensen and freshmen Nick Welch, Jesse Faller, and Peter Browne if the Jumbos are going to continue their winning tradition. Bowdoin, Amherst, Williams, and Wesleyan will offer formidable challenges to the inexperienced Jumbos, who, in the latest Div. III New England Coaches Poll, were ranked eighth, behind MIT and six NESCAC teams.
On the women's side, Tufts will be looking to showcase their depth as they battle some of the best teams in the country. The Jumbos will enter the race ranked seventh in the nation, behind Middlebury (4th) and Amherst (2nd). Tufts placed fourth last year at the NESCAC Championships, behind junior Catherine Beck's 11th place finish. This year's squad is much improved though, and Beck, who has been one of the top runners in the league, will have help from fellow-junior Katy O'Brien, sophomore Evelyn Sharkey, and senior Raquel Morgan as the team makes its march towards nationals.
The course at Harkness Memorial is known for being very fast, in addition to having a marshy section in the middle that slows down the race to single-file. Both teams raced the course at Harkness at the Conn. College Invitational in September, where the women's team finished first and the men's team took sixth.
