This weekend, the women's basketball team will find itself in a position that it has become all too familiar: trying to avenge a painful loss to Amherst.
The third-seeded Jumbos will take on the second-seeded Lord Jeffs in a highly anticipated NESCAC semifinal matchup tomorrow afternoon in Brunswick, Maine. With a victory, Tufts would earn its third consecutive trip to the conference championship game.
Standing in the way, however, is an Amherst team, which is ranked No. 7 nationally, that has been a thorn in Tufts' side since the start of last season. The Jumbos, ranked No. 15 nationally have lost each of their last three meetings against the Lord Jeffs, none by greater than six points.
"They're always the team that we're gunning for," senior co-captain Stacy Filocco said. "We know that beating Amherst means a lot. They're ranked first in New England, [and] we've lost to them several times the past few years, but at the same time, a win is a win, and this is just one more game on the way to our goal of winning the NESCAC Championship."
Amherst's winning streak against Tufts began on Jan. 18, 2008, when the Lord Jeffs came into Cousens Gym and scored a 64-62 buzzer-beater victory that put an end to the Jumbos' program-best 12-0 start. The two teams met again in the championship game of last year's NESCAC Tournament, and once again, Amherst came out on top, taking the win, 59-53, to secure its first-ever conference crown.
The loss marked the second consecutive season that Tufts fell one win short of a NESCAC title; the Jumbos fell in the 2007 conference championship game to a powerhouse Bowdoin team.
The most recent meeting between Tufts and Amherst occurred three weeks ago at LeFrak Gymnasium in a game with both NESCAC and national implications. Despite trailing at the half, the Lord Jeffs wound up prevailing in the end by a 54-48 score, knocking the Jumbos out of first place in the conference standings.
Junior forward Casey Sullivan was the only Tufts player to score in double digits, finishing with 10 points and six rebounds. Amherst shot twice as many free throws as the Jumbos during the contest, scoring 16 from the line on 28 shots compared to only seven by Tufts on 14 attempts.
"What we learned against Amherst is that we have to play tough defense and move the ball more," Sullivan said. "They play tough defense ... and we're going to have to play at a high level the whole game, keep up the intensity ... Our mindset, as a team, is definitely [to be] focused and prepared."
The Lord Jeffs enter the contest leading the conference in both offense and defense. They are averaging 72.2 points per game while only giving up 48.7, more than five points per game fewer than Bowdoin, the second-best defensive team in the NESCAC. But Tufts is right behind Amherst offensively at 70.6 points per game and is confident heading into Saturday's match.
"They play very aggressive defense," Filocco said. "We usually are a high-scoring team, and when we played them earlier in the year we definitely didn't score as much as we normally do. Overall, I think we match up pretty well with them, and we're ready to battle it out."
Amherst comes into the weekend with a 24-1 mark, the lone loss coming in a buzzer-beater affair with Bowdoin on Jan. 30. The loss proved monumental down the line when both the Polar Bears and the Lord Jeffs finished the regular season tied atop the conference standings with 8-1 NESCAC records. With the head-to-head tiebreaker, Bowdoin earned the conference tournament's top seed and the right to host semifinal and championship action this weekend.
In first-round play last Saturday, second-seeded Amherst crushed seventh-seeded Colby -- a team that beat Tufts earlier this season -- by a 77-36 score. Sophomore guard/forward Jaci Daigneault led the Lord Jeffs with 22 points, while no one on the Mules reached double figures in scoring.
In its first-round matchup, third-seeded Tufts beat sixth-seeded Wesleyan 71-57 at Cousens Gym to reach the semifinals for the third straight year. The Jumbos boasted a balanced attack, as four starters scored in double figures.
The Jumbos will need another strong effort to be victorious this weekend.
"I think as long as we just play our game, we have just as good a shot at beating them this time as we did last time, and we can only improve from where we were," Filocco said. "We're very optimistic going into the weekend."
"It means everything to us," Sullivan added. "We've been preparing all week and all season to get back to the NESCAC finals, and I don't think there's anything that would be more exciting to us than beating Amherst in the semifinals this weekend. Everybody wants it bad."
