Junior Ross Gimbel was not ready to call it quits just yet.
On Friday night, Gimbel turned in a two-goal performance to propel the men's hockey team over visiting Salem State 7-1, only to outdo himself on Saturday with a hat trick in an 8-4 loss to Southern Maine, concluding the Jumbos' home schedule this season.
With his five goals and one assist, Gimbel moved up the scoring ladder to first place on the Jumbos, with 24 points.
"Ross has emerged as a leader this year," coach Brian Murphy said. "He's played hard the whole year as a goal scorer. He does some things that give other teams match-up issues. He's big, he's strong and he skates well."
Gimbel didn't waste any time against Southern Maine, notching his first goal just over one minute into the first period, off of an assist from junior forward Greg O'Connell. Southern Maine senior Chris Sparkes answered quickly, tying the game just over two minutes later. The Jumbos found themselves triling 2-1 when senior captain Mark Carragher added a power play goal to give Southern Maine the lead with just under seven minutes to play in the frame.
"We got lazy in our own end," Murphy said. "We tried to play a game with them that we can't play, and we weren't able to produce consistently. We had some lapses in our own end, and they capitalized on them."
The first period was full of back-and-forth scoring, as sophomore Joe Milo scored his ninth goal of the season to tie the game at two apiece.
But the Huskies answered yet again, adding two more goals to secure a 4-2 lead heading into the third period.
The Jumbos were not done yet, however, as Gimbel scored twice in the third. It was not enough, though, as the Huskies rounded out a four-goal period, applying a lot of pressure to the Jumbo goaltender junior James Kalec, who stopped 28 shots in the 8-4 loss.
"They maintained pressure in our zone for so long," Kalec said. "They got good traffic, continued to play well, and were able to capitalize."
Though last weekend's NESCAC losses eliminated any chance of a postseason appearance for Tufts, the team was still upbeat entering Friday night's contest against Salem State.
Five different Jumbos, including Milo, O'Connell, and Gimbel, contributed multi-point games in a 7-1 thrashing of the Vikings.
Salem State pulled freshman goaltender Joshua Ex after he allowed his fifth goal late in the second period, bringing in sophomore Troy Ciernia, who racked up 12 saves.
Any hope of a shutout disappeared when senior forward Andrew O'Neill scored during a power play with three minutes remaining in the game. Kalec recorded 35 saves, including 16 in the third period.
In its final two games of the season, Tufts will face Babson and UMass-Boston next weekend in consecutive road games to close out the season with two ECAC East Conference games.
With most of the season under their belts, the Jumbos are looking towards next year, hoping to improve their abysmal 6-16 overall record.
"We have to beat the NESCAC teams in the regular season," Kalec said. "I think we played a lot of our conference games against teams that were playing very well. In order for us to be competitive in the general landscape of our conference, we need to get better in pretty much every part of the game."
"The way we're playing the game is new," Murphy said. "We're doing a lot of things differently this year, and we've obviously gone through some growing pains. Next season, there are a number of things we've got to work on."
The Jumbos attribute the frustrating season in part to inexperience. The team's roster has ten freshmen, an anomaly for any college hockey team.
Coach Murphy maintains the belief that a year of experience will greatly help these young players in developing into strong players in the future.
"I wish we didn't have to rely on playing so many freshmen consistently," Murphy said. "It's important for them to watch and learn a little bit. I expect that they'll come back pretty strong next year."
"A year of experience will help a ton for the whole team," Kalec said. "A lot of guys are trying to find what kind of role they play on the team, and what tasks they have to carry out for us. The way we played teams towards the end shows that the freshmen have stepped up a lot."
