The volleyball team struggled to carry the momentum of its recent winning streak into the weekend's Jumbo Invitational, coming in fourth place and posting the team's worst showing ever at its home event.
The team finished with just one win on the weekend, putting an abrupt end to a recent run that saw it win six of eight matches.
In the final match of the tournament, Tufts got its anticipated rematch with MIT, who defeated the Jumbos in the final of last weekend's MIT Invitational. The Jumbos had beaten the Engineers in the previous three years of the Jumbo Invitational, and the match looked like it would follow suit after the first game went in Tufts' favor.
Junior Kaitlin O'Reilly, last year's tournament MVP, started the game off with an ace and her strong serving propelled the Jumbos to a 5-0 lead. The Engineers would rally from a seven-point deficit late in the game to take the lead 29-28 off of an ace that hit the net. At 31-30 MIT, senior captain Katie Wysham came up with a slam to tie the game again. Soon after, freshman Dawson Joyce-Mendive had successive kills to take the game 34-32. However, the game proved to be the only one MIT would drop in the entire tournament.
"Tufts is a good team, and we like the challenge of playing them," MIT coach Paul Dill said. "It was important to beat a quality team at their home. The key was that we maintained our composure throughout. Even after losing the first game, we didn't get rattled."
In the second game, Tufts went up by three points early thanks to one of senior captain Katie Wysham's six blocks. MIT kept it together, and the Engineers pulled out the game 30-25 with runs of six and eight points, the latter off of sophomore Katrina Ellison's serve. Ellison had seven aces and 14 kills on the day.
MIT took the final two games 30-19 each despite attempted Jumbo comebacks, especially in the third game, in which a 19-point lead was cut to nine during a run off of Wysham's serve. Tufts dropped to 8-9 while MIT improved to 19-1.
"We just could've had more fun and pushed harder," said sophomore Dena Feiger, who finished with 22 assists and 14 digs. "We did that Saturday and it showed - even though we only won one of our matches, we were more aggressive."
Earlier Saturday, the Jumbos won their only match of the weekend. They defeated SUNY Brockport in three games, 30-24, 30-28, 30-17. Freshman Caitlin Updike led the stat sheet, recording eight kills, three aces and 15 digs. Joyce-Mendive tallied double digits in kills once again, and sophomore Brogie Helgeson continued her strong play with nine kills. Defensively, junior Natalie Goldstein contributed 14 digs.
The Jumbos' tournament opened on Friday with a match against the Wellesley Blue. The Jumbos got off to an auspicious start as they took the first two games 30-26 and 30-14 with strong play from Wysham and Updike.
With the match seemingly out of hand, Wellesley was somehow able to regroup. Owing to 16 service aces and three players with double digits in kills, the Blue rallied to take the final three games, 30-19, 30-21 and 15-13. Wysham and junior Kate Denniston combined for 13 blocks, while Goldstein as usual paced Tufts with 27 digs.
Wellesley (12-3) won all four of its matches in the tournament, but finished second having lost five games to MIT's one.
Later on in the evening, Tufts took on Elizabethtown and remained winless for the tournament. The first game was marked by long points. The Jumbos took their first lead of the game 9-8, as Wysham blocked four consecutive Blue Jays attempts, and the crowd got progressively louder with each one. Neither team took a lead of more than four throughout the entire game, which ended 30-27 on an Elizabethtown ace.
The second game was another nail-biter, as Tufts jumped ahead early and kept the lead, going up 28-25 on an ace by Joyce-Mendive. Nevertheless, Elizabethtown won the next four points before a timeout called by Tufts coach Marritt Cafarchia. Undaunted, Elizabethtown won two of the three following points for a 31-29 final score. This game killed the Jumbos' momentum as they went down 14-4 in the deciding game and lost 30-20.
"[Friday] was an off day," Cafarchia said. "It's tough when you have an off day with two matches in that one day.
Despite the losses, the team still enjoyed playing the tournament at home.
"I thought it was so much fun," Feiger said. "It's our court - our gym. We have awesome fans, and it's always great, no matter how well we do."
Next weekend Tufts will continue to host against tough competition as NESCAC opponents Amherst and Middlebury visit Medford.
