Following a season that ended after battling perennial conference powerhouse Middlebury to triple-overtime in the semifinals of the NESCAC Tournament, the men's lacrosse team hopes it can once again compete with the best in the league.
"We had a pretty inexperienced team last year, but we got a lot stronger as the year went on," senior tri-captain attack Mark Warner said. "We have some pretty lofty goals in mind for this season."
The Jumbos' high hopes for 2007 stem in part from their performance in the seven-round bout against the Panthers, in which they tied the game as time expired to force overtime against a team that dealt them a 12-4 drubbing in the regular season.
"We always expect to play like a top-five team," sophomore attack Clem McNally said. "That game helped show that to other people."
The match up against Middlebury was the culmination of an 11-6 2006 campaign that saw the team notch its fifth consecutive winning season. One of the hallmarks of last year's squad was its defense, which ranked third in the NESCAC in saves per game and fourth in goals against. And those numbers should only improve with senior tri-captain Wiley Dornseif returning from an All-NESCAC year to patrol the back for another season.
Further, sophomore goalie Matt Harrigan had an excellent season in net in his rookie year. His 200 career saves already have him ranked sixth all-time in the Tufts record books.
"The deepest part of our team is definitely our defense," Warner said. "And we have a very solid goalie who I would say is the best in the NESCAC."
The Jumbos' strong postseason run was a contrast to its up-and-down regular season. Last year, the Jumbos cruised through the opening portion of their season, opening 6-1, behind the strength of consecutive league wins on the road against Amherst and Trinity.
They subsequently split the next two contests, falling to Bowdoin and beating Williams, before enduring their two worst losses of the season: a 12-4 defeat against eventual-NESCAC champion Middlebury, followed by a 17-9 thrashing at the hands of Colby, one of only two Mules victories on the 2006 season. The defeat clearly lit a spark underneath the squad.
"We didn't play our best game against Colby," senior tri-captain Brett Holm said. "Everybody was a little disappointed after that loss. It definitely gave us some extra motivation going into the final part of the year."
Tufts then went on a run that saw it win five of its next six games, the lone setback coming in a 4-3 nail-biter to national-semifinalist Wesleyan. With the late-season push, the Jumbos finished with a conference mark of 5-4, good enough for the fourth seed in the 2006 NESCAC Tournament.
This year, the Jumbos hope to avoid the same type of inconsistent regular season that plagued them last year. To succeed, it will lean on the leadership of its three senior captains, Dornseif, Warner, and Holm.
"We just want to be in a position where we don't get too high when we're high and too low when we're low," senior defenseman Alex Bezdek said. "A lot of it is mental: handling injuries, handling weird scheduling, it's just a matter of having the leadership to handle that sort of stuff."
Being consistent will be especially important if the team hopes to stay afloat in the cutthroat NESCAC.
"The NESCAC is the toughest Division III lacrosse league in the nation," Holm said. "Honest to God, there's no easy games, and if you slip up anybody can beat you."
"In any given year, four NESCAC teams will be ranked in the nation's top 20," Warner said.
In the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association's preseason poll, Middlebury and Wesleyan are ranked fourth and fifth. Tufts cracked the top 20 this year, coming in at 18th after finishing last season in the 20th spot. Still, the team is optimistic about its chances against such stringent competition.
"Winning the NESCAC is a possibility, and we'd like to make the NCAA tournament and maybe turn some heads once we get there," Holm said. "But to tell you the truth, our biggest goal right now is going out and winning our first game against Skidmore."
