When the conference championship kicks off today in Cousens Gym, the volleyball team will have one thing on its mind: finishing what it began Sept. 19 when it won its first conference game.
A sweep this weekend would be an apropos finish to a season in which the team went a perfect 10-0 in conference play, finished the regular season atop the conference for the first time in its history and grabbed the No. 1 slot in the Div. III NCAA regional rankings.
While competing in the playoffs is undoubtedly a pressure-filled situation, hosting contests on its home turf should provide a nice respite for the squad, which has played 10 of its last 11 matches on the road.
"This October we've been traveling the entire month and haven't had a break," senior tri-captain Stacy Filocco said. "This allows people to come watch our games. Having home games this weekend is nice, and a bunch of people's families can come out."
The first match of the tournament will be played today at 5 p.m. when the team takes on bottom-seeded Bates. The Bobcats just barely qualified for the tournament, having compiled a meager 2-8 conference record, which left them tied for eighth in the NESCAC.
Fortunately for Bates, it held the tiebreaker advantage over Colby and Trinity, punching its ticket to today's matchup. The Jumbos handled the Bobcats when the two last met in mid-September, topping them in four sets. The winner of that match will face the winner of defending champion and No. 4 Williams and No. 5 Middlebury. Although the Jumbos have beaten every team in the tournament, they remain resolutely focused on today's quarterfinal.
"It would be a huge error on our part to look past this match," senior tri-captain Natalie Goldstein said. "My sophomore year we looked ahead to the second round, and we ended up losing in the first round to Conn. College. Right now, Bates is our biggest threat."
"[Going 10-0] makes the team more confident, and we know we can beat anyone," junior setter Dena Feiger said. "If we get our game together when we're playing those teams, we can do it again, but it's tough to beat teams more than once."
Four tournament matches will be played on the Hill this evening, with two scheduled in Cousens and the other two in Chase Gym.
The Jumbos clinched home-court advantage Friday and Saturday by beating Wesleyan and Trinity in a pair of key road contests. Sophomore Dawson Joyce-Mendive totaled a gaudy 32 kills against just seven errors in the seven combined sets, earning NESCAC Player of the Week honors for her efforts.
"Dawson played phenomenally against Wesleyan," Goldstein said. "She had a bunch of key kills at the end of the matches. She was taking on a huge part at the end and wasn't just hitting her shots in but putting them down for kills. She was incredibly clutch at the end of the game."
That said, Joyce-Mendive remains questionable this weekend after having a root canal. She is the third Tufts player to have won NESCAC Player of the Week, along with senior tri-captain Kate Denniston and sophomore Caitlin Updike. Updike ranks third in the conference in hitting percentage and posted 18 kills to a single error last weekend, giving the Jumbos quite the dynamic hitting tandem.
"Having a player who's really on pumps up the rest of the team," Feiger said. "When they're able to play as well as they're playing, it makes the rest of the team confident, and everyone else feels like they need to step it up as well."
Feiger has competed in all but three sets this year and accumulated her 1,000th assist of the fall campaign over the weekend. The only Tufts player to have played in more sets is senior defensive specialist Maya Ripecky.
On the other side of the bracket, respective second and third seeds, 8-2 Wesleyan and 8-2 Amherst, are favored to win today. Wesleyan senior co-captain and dominant NESCAC hitter Lisa Drennan leads her squad, while Amherst features a stellar defense that leads the conference in blocks per set; Lord Jeff sophomore Rachel Yorke sits second in digs per set.
Despite emerging with a perfect record in conference play, Tufts had to battle its way through some of those contests. Indeed, the Jumbos have been pushed to five sets by three teams in the tournament field: Amherst, Williams and No. 6 Conn. College.
"We need to play really composed, consistent and aggressive volleyball; we need play to win," Goldstein said. "A lot of the time when we step on the floor, our team knows how to win, but we do just enough to win. We were only winning sets by a couple points against Wesleyan and Trinity. This weekend we really want to put teams away and show everyone we are the best team in New England."
At 27-2 overall, Tufts is the top-ranked team in New England, with Wesleyan, Amherst and Williams also sitting in the top 10. The Jumbos also received 11 votes in the national poll conducted earlier this week. The winner of the NESCAC Championship will earn an automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament; but, according to Goldstein, that's far from the team's top concern.
"We've constantly been saying, we do not have an automatic bid into the NCAAs," she said. "We are incredibly focused on NESCACs."
