"We were a young team, but we came together," senior Katie Wysham said of the team she captained this fall. "We had a lot of people playing lots of new positions, we had a new coach, and only one playing senior. Still, the season was great. I really enjoyed it."
It was indeed a work-in-progress season for the volleyball team, which fielded a young squad of eight freshmen and sophomores and a new coach in former assistant Marritt Cafarchia, who stepped in for coach Cora Thompson, who missed this season for personal reasons. But with an out-of-sight final month of the season, the Jumbos improved on last year's fourth-place NESCAC finish, finishing 7-3 to capture the third seed in the conference tournament. They also atoned for last year's first-round exit from the NESCAC Tournament by knocking off sixth-seeded Trinity to advance to the second round.
The year started with a rough trip to California, where Tufts lost its first four matches of the season. On returning home, though, the Jumbos won six of their next seven, a run indicative of the streakiness of their season. But Tufts couldn't maintain the momentum for long, dropping six of eight to fall to 8-11.
At the time, both coach Cafarchia and Wysham addressed the need to reassess the game plan. What they came up with was a new alignment on the floor, switching from a 4-1 to a 5-2 rotation. The shift meant that the team would implement a smaller rotation featuring sophomore Dena Feiger as the lone setter on the floor.
The move worked wonders, as the Jumbos rattled off six straight wins and 10 of 11 overall to end the regular season. Feiger, meanwhile, averaged just over 34 assists per game in those last 11 games and earned a NESCAC Player of the Week honor on Oct. 15.
"Finding our niche was huge," Wysham said. "Just trying to find our best positions and switching from 4-2 to 5-1 built up our team chemistry to a point where we were able to win. It helped in improving our communication, and was definitely a turning point this season."
The turnaround couldn't have been timelier for the Jumbos, who rocketed themselves from a 1-3 early-season NESCAC hole to 7-3 by sweeping their final six conference matches. The beginning of that run saw the team sweep Trinity and Wesleyan and turn its season around.
"I think a huge turning point was our first successful NESCAC weekend at Amherst," junior Natalie Goldstein said. "We beat Wesleyan and Trinity, and showed the NESCAC that our team had drastically improved. One huge achievement we had was that all the other teams didn't change much, but our team constantly improved. The reason why was that we constantly faced tough teams, like in California, and we were always playing quality competition."
The tear allowed the Jumbos to move from seventh in the NESCAC to third, earning a trip to the conference tournament. In the first round, the Jumbos beat Trinity handily, but their season came to a close against Williams in the semifinals. The Ephs went on to win the championship, and Tufts was not awarded an at-large berth in the NCAA tournament.
"I wish we had made it to NCAAs; it's sad we don't get to be there," Goldstein said. "As a team, we definitely deserved it. We just needed to play consistently all season. It was unfortunate."
Unfortunately for Tufts, Wysham was held out of action against Williams due to an injury, and the team suffered without her conference-leading 1.56 blocks per game in the lineup. Wysham also tallied the most kills on the season for Tufts. On Tuesday, she was named to the All-NEWVA Second Team, and yesterday, she earned a First Team All-NESCAC selection.
While the team will certainly miss Wysham next year, it has a great deal of young talent that will return next year. For much of the season, the Jumbos were led on offense by two first-year players in hitters Dawson Joyce-Mendive and Caitlin Updike, first and third respectively on the squad in kills per game. Junior Stacy Filocco was also a key contributor on offense, as she established herself through steady improvement throughout the year.
On defense, the Jumbos were paced in digs by Goldstein, who played libero and ranked third in the conference in digs per game.
"I'm really excited, especially considering we're returning so many players," Goldstein said about next year. "Losing [Wysham] is going to be really hard, because she's an amazing athlete, and same with losing [senior Stephanie Viola] who was a huge leader and filled a sort of coaching role. But I'm really excited. I already want to start our offseason because this season went by so fast. I had such a great time."
