Men's Cross Country
For the men's cross country team, the 2007 season was one of great accomplishments and solid rebuilding for the future. The Jumbos boasted several strong team performances in the always-ultra-competitive NESCAC, including second-place finishes at Trinity and the Jumbo Invitational and third-place showings at Keene State and the Plansky Invitational.After placing fifth at the NESCAC Championships, the Jumbos completed by far their best team performance at the NCAA Div. III New England Championships, where they took third in a large, competitive field of 47 teams. One week later, Tufts raced to a 26th-place finish out of 32 teams at the NCAA Div. III National Championships.
Five seniors from the team will graduate today: tri-captains Alex Bloom, Chris Kantos and Dave Sorensen, and classmates Matt Alander and Rony Jacques. They will leave behind a talented nucleus of underclassmen who emerged as key contributors in 2007. Four of the team's seven competitors at Nationals - Jerzy Eisenberg-Guyot, Jesse Faller, Greg Pallotta and Nick Welch - were freshmen and sophomores. Coach Ethan Barron will also have the veteran presence of rising senior Dave Tilton at his disposal for the 2008 campaign.
Women's Cross Country
After a record-setting fifth-place performance at Nationals in 2006, the women's cross country squad was out of its usual form to start the 2007 campaign.Senior tri-captains Cat Beck and Katy O'Brien and freshman Stephanie McNamara - who would become Tufts' top three runners - were all question marks at the start of the season, as O'Brien and McNamara spent the summer recovering from injuries and Beck was sidelined with a stress fracture. But the trio surpassed all expectations, supported by veteran senior Anna Shih and several strong newcomers, including junior Amy Hopkins, sophomore Lisa Picascia and freshmen Christy Loftus and Amy Wilfert.
O'Brien shined early on, anchoring Tufts with wins at Trinity and at home. Beck also came back with a vengeance, grabbing ninth at All-New England Championships. But perhaps the biggest story for the Jumbos was McNamara, who stormed to the front of the pack to join O'Brien and Beck in notching top-10 finishes at the NCAA Northeast Region Championship.
Although the team's season ended there, O'Brien, Beck and McNamara continued to impress, individually moving on to NCAA Championships and earning All-American honors (awarded to runners who finish in the top 35 in their events) with 16th-, 21st- and 30th-place finishes, respectively.
Football
Going into its final game versus Middlebury, the football team was among a group of three teams that had a chance to tie the visiting Panthers atop the NESCAC standings.Instead, the Jumbos missed out on the opportunity and fell 21-19, thanks in large part to four turnovers and two missed extra points.
Tufts' biggest win of the season came on Parents Weekend, when the Jumbos took down the previously-undefeated Trinity Bantams 16-10 to move to 4-0. Trinity had won 40 of its previous 41 games, but the Jumbos' opportunistic defense forced three turnovers and stopped the Bantams on downs four times in the second half.
Tufts' defense, led by First Team All-NESCAC sophomore safety Tom Tassinari and Second Team junior linebacker Tyson Reynoso, held opponents to 16.8 points per game, but it was the offense that had a coming out party of sorts this season. Senior quarterback Matt Russo enjoyed one of the finest passing seasons in school history, throwing a record-tying 14 touchdown passes for the fourth-best offense in the league.
Although Tufts lost three of four down the stretch, the Jumbos finished with their first winning season since 2003 and were seventh in the final New England Div. III poll.
Golf
The theme of the golf team's fall season was inconsistency. Finishes ranged from first place at the Husson Tournament in Orono, Maine on October 7-8 to 13th place at the Duke Nelson Invitational at Middlebury on Sept. 15-16.Despite the wide range of finishes, the Jumbos were relatively consistent in their scoring, generally shooting between 620 and 640 - a composite score of the four players' scores over the two days of the event.
Senior captain Pat Sullivan led the way all season for the Jumbos. In Tufts' first competition of the season, the 2007 Bowdoin Golf Invitational on September 8-9, Sullivan shot a two-day score of 148, only four shots over par, to finish first at the event. As a whole, the Jumbos finished third out of 13 teams with a two-round total of 636.
The fall season was capped off with a 25th-place finish out of 42 teams at the New England Championships Oct. 22-23. After a brilliant first day in which the team shot a 306 and trailed only two Div. I teams, the Jumbos shot a 344 on the second day to finish with a final score of 650, dropping 22 spots to 25th.
Men's Soccer
The men's soccer team entered its 2007 campaign looking to emerge as a potential sleeper team in the NESCAC. Unfortunately for the squad, an early-season losing streak and a touch of bad luck at the end derailed a talented group.After tying with Colby 2-2 in their season opener, the Jumbos went on to lose their next four, digging themselves into a deep hole. But the team rebounded, winning four of its next six games, including quality conference victories over Bates and Trinity.
The win over Trinity moved the squad into the seventh and final playoff spot in the NESCAC standings with just two games to play. In control of their own destiny, the Jumbos suffered a heartbreaking overtime loss to Conn. College in the regular season finale that kept them out of the conference tournament and abruptly ended their season.
Among the positives for the team, which finished 2-6-1 in the NESCAC and 5-8-1 overall, was that the defense surrendered no more than two goals in a game the entire season, providing the Jumbos with a foundation to build upon in 2008. However, there will have to be adjustments offensively with the graduation of Greg O'Connell, who led the team in points (11) and goals scored (5).
Volleyball
The volleyball team posted a streaky season culminating in a 19-13 overall (7-3 conference) record and a loss in the NESCAC Tournament semifinal.The Jumbos lost the first four out-of-conference matches of the season to staunch opponents in California before returning home and capturing six of the next seven. But the team then went on to drop six of the next eight matches to fall to 8-11.
Needing something to turn Tufts' season around, interim coach Marritt Cafarchia implemented a shift from a 6-2 to a 5-1 formation, a move designed to reduce the players in the Jumbos' rotation. The change triggered a turnaround heading into the NESCAC Tournament, as Tufts won 10 out of its next 11 matches - including nine victories away from home.
Seeded third in the conference tournament, the squad managed to sweep Trinity in the quarterfinals before being swept themselves by eventual champion and tournament No. 2 seed Williams the following day.
Senior captain Katie Wysham, who along with classmate Stephanie Viola graduates today, was a force at net all season for the Jumbos. Wysham averaged 1.6 blocks per game and was named an honorable mention All-American and a First Team All-NESCAC selection.
