All streaks must come to an end.
Unfortunately for the water polo team, its season-long bid for perfection ended one win short of a trip to the title game at the 2007 National Collegiate Club Div. III Men's Championship in St. Louis, Mo.
In a closely-contested semifinal matchup between Tufts and Grinnell, the Wild Turkeys edged the Jumbos 6-4 in overtime to advance to the championship game against reigning champion Lindenwood.
But the Jumbos rebounded, beating Grove City 12-8 to earn third place at the tournament for the second consecutive year.
"We were disappointed in the way we lost because we felt like we could have won that game," senior co-captain Marshall Somers said. "But to walk away with third place at the Nationals tournament, we were very proud of that."
Grinnell proved to be Tufts' greatest challenge of the season, refusing to let Tufts build a lead by responding to each Jumbo tally with one of its own. The Wild Turkeys offensive attack drew 13 ejections compared to the Jumbos' one, giving Grinnell man-up advantages throughout the game.
"That had a huge role," junior Ben Mitchell said. "Usually we draw a lot more ejections than that. All game I was trying hard to get these guys to foul me and get kicked out, but the refs weren't giving us any calls."
"I don't want to blame it on the reffing, but it didn't really match with our style of play," Somers said. "We were getting a lot of calls that I wouldn't agree with, and so we just thought that that stat was pretty telling at the end of how the game went."
Though the Jumbos held a one-point lead as the clock wound down, Grinnell penetrated Tufts' solid defensive front and sent a bullet past junior goalkeeper Hayden Reich that tied the game at 4-4 with 1:43 remaining in regulation.
Just a minute into overtime, Grinnell took the lead and ultimately the game. The Wild Turkeys' defense buckled down, crashing on Tufts' hole sets to stifle ball movement and baffle the Jumbo offense. With 3:24 to play, Grinnell struck again to put the game out of reach for Tufts.
"It all kind of fell apart," Somers said. "They made a few really good plays in overtime and got those extra goals. We couldn't follow through with our shots, and our leading scorers couldn't really do anything. We'd take shots, but we really just couldn't get any in the goal. The only thing we could do is just stick to our defense."
Though the season's first loss was a deflating one for the Jumbos, the team regrouped for a third-place battle with the Grove City Wolverines the following morning.
"It was very difficult," Somers said. "The whole team was pretty down after the loss, and it took a lot of energy to refocus and realize we were still playing for third place. We felt against Grinnell that we were a better team - we just didn't play the better game. But I think everyone on the team did a good job of getting our heads back into it and playing a great game."
"We were upset for a while, but we got back on the horse and got up for our next game," Mitchell said. "It started off kind of slowly because we were upset, but after the first quarter we definitely got into it and played like we were the winners."
The Jumbos took the lead from the outset and were not seriously threatened until the Wolverines came within two in the third period. But the Jumbo offense, back on track after the loss to Grinnell, tallied three straight goals from senior Eric Appelin, senior co-captain Drew Curhan and junior attacker Pete Georgakakos to ward off Grove City and come away with a 12-8 victory.
The victory ended a strong weekend for Tufts, which started off with a dominating victory over Monmouth College. Led by Georgakakos, who posted a game-high six goals, the Jumbos outscored the Crab People 8-3 in each half of play for a final score of 16-6. In addition to Georgakakos, seven other Jumbos got on the board, with juniors Loren Austin and Mitchell also turning in multi-goal games.
"We definitely came in there with the goal of just playing our game," Somers said. "I think we did that very well. We executed well and came out with a good victory."
"We wanted to start the tournament off strong," Curhan said. "We had good ball movement, and a lot of people scored. We wanted to have a good first game so we could carry it on into the second game."
Following the tournament, Georgakakos and Somers were awarded with First and Second Team All-Tournament honors, respectively.
"It was a huge honor and I'm proud of it, but I felt like any number of guys on our team deserved the honor just as much," Somers said. "It was nice, but I don't think it shows anything more than the fact that we came together and played a great tournament as a team."
Though the season didn't end exactly as the Jumbos had hoped, their 13-1 record is nothing to be ashamed of.
"I'm extremely proud, and even though we didn't make it to the championship game, I'm happy with how our season went," Curhan said. "We had an excellent record, and more importantly we had an excellent time as a team.
"On any given Sunday, a team can win or lose, and that day we just didn't play for our full potential," he continued. "It doesn't affect how I feel about the season. We still got to bring some hardware home, so we're happy about that."
