After finishing last season with a 7-7 record, with six losses against NESCAC teams, the women's lacrosse team is looking to improve on last year's performance.
The Jumbos started strong, decisively winning four of their first six games by a margin of over seven goals. It was a telling start for a team that wound up as the conference's second-highest scoring team, averaging over 12 goals per game. The offensive output was all the more impressive considering that the team had graduated its eighth all-time leading scorer, Dena Miller (LA '06), just the year before.
A huge reason for the offensive prowess was the play of junior Courtney Thomas. Thomas scored 35 goals, four fewer than Miller, in the previous year, 29 more than she scored in the year before.
Of the early-season victories, two came against the challenging NESCAC, one of deepest conferences in Div. III lacrosse. Tufts scored a 13-9 victory over Conn. College on March 28 followed by a 16-7 trouncing at Trinity three days later. The wins were a nice bounce-back performance for Tufts following a heartbreaking double-overtime loss to Williams in the NESCAC opener March 17.
In April, Tufts continued to fare well against its out-of-conference foes, picking up victories against Bridgewater State and Endicott and dropping just a one-goal decision to Babson.
But the team could not keep up its success within the NESCAC, particularly in close games. The Jumbos lost four of five conference games in April, two by one goal and one in overtime. After ending the season with a 15-8 loss to powerhouse Middlebury - a national semifinalist and seven-time defending NESCAC champion, undefeated in conference play over the past eight years - Tufts finished with a 3-6 conference record, its worst since 2004. Still, the team posted a 7-7 record overall, making 22 consecutive seasons under coach Carol Rappoli that the team has finished .500 or better.
The graduation of last season's co-captains, Lauren Murphy and Jackie Thomas, left a hole in the lineup that Rappoli hopes the incoming freshmen can fill. With the graduation of goalkeeper Tracy Rittenour and with last season's main goalkeeper, then-sophomore Gillian Kline, no longer on the roster, the weight of goalkeeping has fallen on the shoulders of freshman Sara Bloom.
