After a season of games against well-known and well-scouted NESCAC opponents, plus some returning non-conference guests, the field hockey team will face a complete unknown in its biggest game of the season.
New England College comes to Bello Field today for the first round of the Div. III NCAA Tournament. The Pilgrims earned their spot with a 4-2 win over Nichols College in The Commonwealth Coast Conference (TCCC) title game last weekend, while the Jumbos sweated out the selection period and were rewarded with one of seven at-large bids early Monday morning.
Tufts, 12-4 and ranked in the national top 20 in the past five weekly polls, is making its third NCAA appearance in school history, and nabbed its first-ever higher seed and the accompanying hosting rights. The 14-6 Pilgrims are making their sixth straight NCAA appearance, having received TCCC's automatic bid every year since 2002.
The Jumbos earned at-large bids in 1995 and 1998, but fell 2-0 to Trenton State (now The College of New Jersey) in their first trip and 1-0 in overtime to Rowan in 1998.
"They're obviously a good team or they wouldn't be where they are," coach Tina McDavitt said. "Other than that, I truly don't know what to expect. We're just really excited to be playing."
The Pilgrims made the hour and a half trip from Henniker, N.H. yesterday afternoon, in compliance with NCAA rules, and split practice time at Bello with the Jumbos under the supervision of an NCAA official.
While neither coach has seen the other team in action, Tufts and NEC have faced four of the same teams this year. The usefulness of records against common opponents is tenuous at best, but they help fill in a clearer picture.
Tufts faced two TCCC teams and trounced both, beating Gordon, the league's regular-season winner, and Endicott by a total score of 9-0. The Pilgrims split games against a pair of the NESCAC's bottom-tier teams, falling 4-2 to Colby on the road and edging Bates 4-3 at home.
"I've never seen Tufts play," NEC coach Susan Murray said. "[McDavitt] is relatively new and they've really improved under her eye, but other than that, I don't know what to expect. I've looked at [common opponents], but you can only take so much from that."
Statistics, while also imperfect given the teams' differing schedules, add a little more clarity.
The Pilgrims have the fifth-best scoring offense in the nation, averaging just over four goals per game. That number is padded by several big wins over weaker TCCC opponents - 10-1 over Regis and a trio of seven-goal outputs against Nichols, Western New England and Anna Maria - but has been carried by a senior in the middle of an out-of-sight offensive year. Center forward Amanda Lester, who entered the program in 2004 as a goalkeeper, carries 36 goals into today's game, the most in the nation in any division.
"She has very quick hands, and very soft hands, too, and she carries the ball well in open field," Murray said of Lester. "Teams have tried to double-team her, and what that does is allow other people to open up. She's certainly an asset."
The Jumbos have done well controlling individual threats like Lester this season. A "sandwich" tactic kept Trinity's Karli Del Rossi, then the NESCAC's leading scorer, off the board in a 2-0 win on Oct. 15, and sophomore Margi Scholtes shut down Williams' Meighan McGowan, the reigning NESCAC Player of the Year, in a 3-1 Jumbos' win the following Saturday.
"We've talked about her," Scholtes said of Lester. "We'll have a girl on her tomorrow to start and see how it works."
In addition to their high-flying offense, the Pilgrims bring tournament experience into today's game, with six straight NCAA automatic bids. Last year, a strong senior class led the Pilgrims to a first-round win, 10-4, at Springfield, then ranked 15th nationally.
But this year's squad is missing eight starters from that team. Its starting lineup includes just two seniors and three juniors.
"Tournament experience as a program is always helpful, but unfortunately, we're a very young team," Murray said. "For most of these girls, this is still relatively new."
Only two Pilgrims have started in all 20 of the team's games this year, and three starters and the first player off the bench are rookies. This lack of consistency and experience may explain the team's slow start this year; after dropping four of their first six, the Pilgrims rebounded mid-season and bring an eight-of-nine winning streak into today's matchup.
"We've got some great returning talent but really had to mix it with rookie talent, and that's always a challenge," Murray said. "I wouldn't have bet that we would be here this year, especially with the way we started, but we started to play together as the season went on and we turned it around."
Five of the Pilgrims' six losses have come on the road this year, a bad sign coming into Bello Field, where non-NESCAC teams have gone 0-4 this season. Tufts has run the table in its home midweek schedule, beating Gordon, Endicott, Babson and UMass Dartmouth by a combined score of 18-1.
The Jumbos' home-field advantage may be more than psychological this afternoon. New England College is a grass team, and such teams often find themselves overwhelmed by the faster, more tactical style that turf teams, like Tufts, play.
Defensively, the Jumbos will tweak their style a bit, letting their strong defensive sticks carry them against a Pilgrim team likely to use big hits to move the ball. The Jumbos will give a little more space than the required five yards when blocking up free hits.
"We're definitely gong to have to back off a little more defensively and let them hit into us," McDavitt said.
In a season that set two new records - in team and individual single-season goals - and inched close to several others, the Jumbos have a chance to nab another one today. A win would be the Jumbos' first ever in NCAA Tournament play and validate the second chance they were given with the at-large selection.
"This is the NCAAs and that's amazing, but Tina has kept us grounded and let us know that today is today and we have to win for there to be a tomorrow," senior co-captain Katie Pagos said. "At the same time, it's definitely there - you need to do the little things right, but you also need to have the desire to do something bigger. And we do."
