JENNA GOMEZ, WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
In the women's basketball team's biggest win of the NESCAC season, junior forward Jenna Gomez led the way for the Jumbos in a huge semifinal win over Bates on Saturday.
In a crucial match-up against the third-seeded Bobcats, Gomez came up big for the upstart Jumbos, pouring in a game-high 14 points and grabbing eight rebounds in a 52-39 win. Gomez's performance was all the more important because it catapulted Tufts to its first-ever appearance in the NESCAC championship game against perrenial powerhouse Bowdoin.
Gomez did most of her damage in the first half, scoring the first six points of the game and finishing with a game-high 12 points in the first half. The Jumbos dominated the game in the first frame, limiting the Bobcats to just nine points on 4-of-23 shooting. Gomez was one of several Jumbos crashing the defensive boards all afternoon, with Bates only grabbing four offensive rebounds in the contest.
Yesterday, in the program's first-ever appearance in a NESCAC championship game, Gomez added seven more points, but the Jumbos came up short in a 64-48 loss to Bowdoin. Gomez's performance against Bates loomed large for Tufts in terms of postseason relevance. Despite the loss to Bowdoin, the Jumbos' advancement to the finals put them in the best possible position to gain an at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament, which begins next weekend.
LAWRENCE CHAN, MEN'S SWIMMING
The freshman swimmer made a splash at his first NESCAC meet, taking first place in the 50-yard breaststroke on the first day of competition at Williams. Chan completed the race in 26.83 seconds, taking first place ahead of Middlebury senior Tim Lux and Williams sophomore Tyler Bonewell, who tied for second, both a mere 0.06 seconds behind Chan. Chan finished sixth in the preliminary race with a time of 27.42, with Jumbo sophomore James Longhurst finishing third in the preliminary race, touching in at 27.02. Chan turned on the burners for the finals and was able to take first place, contributing key points to a Jumbo squad that finished tied for third with Middlebury after the first day of events.
While Chan was the only Jumbo swimmer to take first place, many second- and third-place finishes provided important points for the Jumbos, who ended up all alone in third place, behind host Williams and Amherst. In addition to Chan's win, the Jumbos received key second-place finishes from the 200 freestyle relay team of senior Mike Kinsella and sophomores Andrew Shields, Ben Mitchell, and Matt Murphy, and from senior co-captain Greg Bettencourt in the 200-yard freestyle. Both of these finishes were National B times, and the men will await news on whether these times were good enough for a Nationals berth.
