Ice Hockey | Jumbos' brief postseason stint ends with 4-1 first-round loss to Amherst Lord Jeffs

    In spite of a gritty performance by the brown and blue on Saturday afternoon in the first round of the NESCAC tournament, the No. 8 seeded Jumbos fell to the top seed, the nationally ranked No. 6 Amherst Lord Jeffs 4-1 at Orr Rink in Amherst to close out Tufts' season with an 11-12-2 overall record.
    Despite the contest's lopsided final score, the Jumbos' first postseason showdown since the 2004-05 season remained close well into the third period as the visitors rode a stellar 50-save performance by freshman goaltender Scott Barchard, the Jumbos' new record-holder for saves in a single season with 862 stops.
    The game was scoreless through the first 44 minutes until senior defenseman Rylan Burns was able to grab a rebound off the post and tuck it by Barchard to put the Lord Jeffs up 1-0. Only 27 seconds later, Burns struck again, this time finding junior forward Ted Vickers on a three-on-two breakout to beat Barchard and move the tally to 2-0.
    "Once they got that first goal, they got the second one pretty much right away on the same shift," said freshman forward Nick Resor, who led the team with 16 goals on the season. "It just gave them so much momentum to convert that first goal because both teams had had so many chances through the first two periods that when they finally converted that first goal, it kind of took the wind out of our sails a bit. And from there they took that right into the second goal only seconds later."
    Through the first two frames of action, Barchard and Amherst sophomore goalie Cole Anderson, who backed 27 saves overall, kept the action close. Anderson, who leads all Div. III netminders in save percentage and goals-against average, and Barchard took turns stopping tough shots and robbing their opponents on a multitude of quality scoring opportunities all afternoon.
    "It was sort of a dual between two top NESCAC goalies," junior defenseman and co-captain Dave Antonelli said. "Whoever scored first was going to have the best chance of winning simply because it was so tight. If we had gotten that first goal, I really feel like we would've taken that advantage to a win. Both teams had some good stretches of hockey, and the score certainly doesn't indicate how close it really was. We were right there for most of the game, and a lot of the credit has to go to our goalie."
    "We knew going in that even if they were going to get 50 shots, we would still have a chance to win because we've had Scotty in the net," Resor added. "But their goalie played just as well, and we couldn't account for that, and we just weren't able to get enough pucks past him."
    The Jumbos whistled a timeout in an attempt to regroup after falling behind by two, but a tripping minor called on senior forward Andrew Delorey at 8:07 proved fatal. With the lethal Lord Jeff power play at work, sophomore forward Matt Rhone took a loose puck at the point and rifled a slap shot past Barchard to lift the lead to 3-0 in impressive fashion.
    Sophomore forward Zach Diaco was able to break the Jumbos' scoring drought with under six minutes remaining in the contest on a clean one-timer finish off a loose rebound in front of Anderson. But that would be all the Jumbos could muster on the frustrating final afternoon of their season as the Lord Jeffs finished off the visitors with an empty-netter by sophomore forward Trip Wray in the game's final minute.
    One area of concern for the resurgent Jumbos late this season has been the negative shot differential. Despite Barchard's play down the stretch, often times he was forced to stop nearly twice the amount of shots as the opposing goalie. Saturday proved no different as the Lord Jeffs threw 54 shots at Barchard while the Jumbos managed only 28 takes on the Amherst cage.
    "We've definitely been outshot a bit in these past couple games," Antonelli said. "Into next season we're certainly going to be looking at limiting those shots and perhaps adjusting some system things. The reality is the fewer shots they can get on our goal, the less opportunities [they have] to score goals."
    While this weekend's finish does little justice to the team's accomplishments this season, the members of this year's squad have come away from their brief trip to the postseason with a new attitude about the team's capabilities and potential for further success in the future.
    "If you'd have told me this time last year that we'd be hanging with the top teams in the NESCAC this season, I think it would've been a reach," Antonelli said. "We've had some ups and downs this year, but we've had some great hockey and some tough hockey. Sometimes last year it might've felt like we were just trying to hang in there and get by, but starting with the example set by our seniors down to the freshmen, we've come out hungry for every game and tried to take it to every team. The whole mindset of this program has changed; we've just got to keep raising our expectations."