For the second straight season, the NESCAC Tournament came down to penalty kicks for the women's soccer team. And for the second year, Bowdoin ended Tufts' conference playoff run prematurely with a 4-2 edge in the shootout.
Although the Jumbos outshot the Polar Bears 24-8 yesterday, launching 15 shots at Polar Bear senior goalie Kelly Thomas, they were unable to convert the scoring opportunities and the game ended in a double-overtime 0-0 tie.
"Soccer is a funny game like that," coach Martha Whiting said. "Sometimes you can outshoot a team 24-8 and still not put the ball in the back of the net. But I feel proud of the girls because they worked as hard as they could for the entire game, the 90-minute regulation and then the 20 minutes of overtime, and you really can't ask for more than that as a coach."
On Friday, Tufts beat Bowdoin 2-1 in the final game of the regular season, a victory that propelled Tufts past the Polar Bears in the NESCAC standings, allowing the No. 4-seeded Jumbos to host the fifth-seeded Bowdoin squad at home during the tournament's opening round yesterday.
During Friday's contest, freshman forward Jenna Castellot netted her first points of the season, gaining her first assist on a goal from junior Ali Maxwell 15 minutes into the second half to tie the game at one apiece. Three minutes later she scored her first collegiate goal on a breakaway shot to give Tufts the win.
"We wanted to play our game and to play hard and play the way we know we can play," Whiting said. "We had success against them on Friday, and we felt like if we came out and did some of the same things and tried to outwork them, then we'd be okay."
But after 110 minutes of playoff soccer during yesterday's matchup that witnessed no goals despite Tufts' advantage in shots and corner kicks, 11-5, the game went to penalty shots.
"We practiced penalty kicks recently, but it isn't really an environment that you can recreate," junior midfielder Fanna Gamal said. "The whole time I had complete faith that [sophomore goalie] Hannah [Jacobs] was going to stop it and that we were all going to make it."
Bowdoin gave the Jumbos an opening after Polar Bear senior defender Lynne Tempest missed the first shot off the post. Tufts responded when sophomore midfielder Sarah Nolet landed her shot into the net, giving the Jumbos a 1-0 lead.
Bowdoin, however, evened it up again in the next round when freshman midfielder Celeste Swain notched her shot against Jacobs and Thomas made a diving save on Tufts sophomore midfielder Geneva DeGregorio's shot attempt.
The Jumbos and the Polar Bears both made their shots in the third frame, so it came down to the fourth. Freshman forward Ellery Gould, who led Bowdoin with eight goals during the season, scored her most important one of the season and gave the Polar Bears a 3-2 lead. Junior forward Ali Maxwell launched her ensuing shot over the net, and the score remained 3-2 going into the fifth and final round of the shootout.
All Bowdoin had to do was make the final attempt to seal the win, and sophomore forward Christina Aceto nailed it, smashing her shot by a diving Jacobs to give her team the victory.
"It is difficult to see your season come down to penalty kicks because I don't think it's really reflective of the skills of each particular team, and the best team doesn't always win," Gamal said. "Penalty kicks are a really disappointing way to lose.
"If the game had been more even during regulation, it might have been a different story," she continued. "But since I feel like we dominated in regulation, losing in penalty kicks made it a lot rougher." The frustrations felt at the end of yesterday's game were similar to those that had been brewing throughout a season that saw Tufts vault to a 5-0 record before enduring a slew of crippling injuries.
"It was a frustrating season, just in terms of the amount of injuries we had," Whiting said. "I just felt like we never had a healthy team and we were constantly having to juggle lineups. But I feel like we made a lot of progress. We're very young and I think a lot of the kids learned a lot, and so as hard as it is today to even begin to think about tomorrow, we should be excited for next year because we've got the makings of a great team."
