It was the same old story for the women's basketball team Tuesday night, as Tufts defeated conference foe Trinity, 62-46, in a non-conference matchup at Hartford, Conn. The Jumbos had beaten the Bantams in a NESCAC game by a similar margin, 64-42, at Trinity's Oosting Gymnasium just last Friday.
The national No. 16 Jumbos (18-3, 6-2 NESCAC) remain half a game behind Amherst and Bowdoin, who are tied at 6-1 atop the conference standings. Coming off a tough 54-48 loss to Amherst last weekend and with this weekend's season finale against Bates crucial to deciding seedings for the upcoming NESCAC Tournament, the Jumbos needed to find their winning groove again.
"It was really important that we won tonight because it shows that we can bounce back after a game like Amherst, and we didn't let a loss like that turn our season around for the worse," sophomore guard Lindsay Weiner said. "We needed to pick it back up, which we did."
The Jumbos got off to a fast start, as after Trinity went ahead 6-2 in the opening minutes, Tufts went on a 16-0 run to push the lead to 18-6. The Jumbos maintained the pressure and went into halftime with a 35-17 cushion.
"I think [Trinity] played well," coach Carla Berube said. "We just put the pressure on them defensively and made it hard for them to set up their offense and run their offense. That's what I look at, how we dictate the game, not really what Trinity did. I was happy with our start to the game and it meant a lot for us, too. A lot was riding on the game, and we needed a victory."
The Bantams never closed the gap to single digits in the second half, as Tufts spread its offense around and kept the game out of reach for the hosts. Senior forward Katie Tausanovitch was the only Jumbo to score in double digits, tallying 14 points to go along with four rebounds and three blocked shots. Freshman Rachel Figaro added nine points and seven boards for Tufts, while Weiner put up eight points on 3-of-4 shooting to help pace the victory. Breaking a three-game streak of shooting under 55 percent from the free throw line, Tufts was also 15-for-19 (78.9 percent) from the charity stripe against Trinity. It was the defense that the Jumbos relied on, however, as Tufts held the Bantams to just 27.5 percent shooting from the floor.
"It was just an overall team effort," Weiner said. "We did a really good job of scrambling to cover for help, and we also limited our fouls tonight and didn't allow them to shoot an excess amount of free throws."
The loss was the fourth in a row for Trinity, with two of them coming at the hands of the Jumbos, and the Bantams fell to 15-6 overall. At 3-4 in the conference, they rest in sixth place, which, if the standings were to hold to current order, would mean a first-round matchup with Tufts. The Jumbos, meanwhile, now turn toward their final conference matchup of the season as Bates visits Cousens Gym on Saturday.
For Tufts to keep its slim NESCAC regular-season championship hopes alive, the Bates contest is a must-win. Sitting at 6-2 with one conference game remaining, Tufts needs Bowdoin to lose one of its remaining two conference games and Amherst to lose to both Williams and Middlebury. No matter the set of possible outcomes, the game against Bates remains an important one for the Jumbos.
"The regular-season NESCAC championship doesn't mean that much … But it's a big day; it's Senior Day, and Breast Cancer Awareness Week starts on Saturday, so that's important to us and it's a cause that's important to the NESCAC and definitely our team," Berube said. "It's a big game … for standings and seedings for the NESCAC. For us to be 7-2 in the NESCAC season would be … important for getting an NCAA [bid] whether we win the NESCAC championship or not."
