With the regular season winding down and the NESCAC playoff spots rapidly becoming more exclusive, the hockey team clung on to the last slot in the conference tournament thanks to a crucial weekend split.
Despite losing to visiting Trinity College on Saturday 4−1, the Jumbos remained in eighth place in the NESCAC after rolling over Wesleyan on Friday night, 8−5.
In its latter weekend contest, Tufts fell victim to a tough and deep Trinity club that entered the game having won three of its last four matches and was looking to gain ground on third−place Bowdoin in the conference standings. The Bantams surged out to a 2−0 lead in the first period against the Jumbos and never looked back, cruising to their third consecutive victory.
"They're a great team," senior tri−captain and forward Dave Antonelli said about Trinity. "And for my money, they're one of the top two or three teams we're going to play this year."
The Bantams came out flying with 19 shots in the opening stanza and, though they only got two pucks past Tufts sophomore goalie Scott Barchard in the first, which came from junior forward Matthew Quigely and sophomore forward Sean McCarthy, the lead proved to be enough.
Senior captain and forward Richard Hollstein notched his fourth goal of the season midway through the second period to give the visitors a healthy 3−0 lead with 30 minutes left to play. The Bantams' final goal came when freshman defender Michael DiCenso fired on an empty net with just 40 seconds left to play in the game.
Tufts' lone tally came 49 seconds after Hollstein's goal when junior forward Zach Diaco spun around in the slot and scored inside the left post, his fourth of the weekend.
Though Tufts fired 27 shots at Trinity junior goaltender Wesley Vesprini, the Jumbos were unable to convert on any of their seven power−play opportunities. Barchard finished with 44 saves and assisted on Diaco's tally.
On Friday, while most Tufts students were busy putting on suits and dresses for Break the Ice, the Jumbos laced up their skates to do battle with a cellar−dwelling Wesleyan unit that had lost five of its last six games and seven of its last nine.
In the 8−5 romp, the Jumbos opened the scoring early with a short−handed goal by junior forward Lindsay Walker just over two minutes into the game. The goal was set up by freshman defenseman Trevor John on a perfectly executed two−on−one rush.
Six minutes later, junior tri−captain Dylan Cooper beat senior goalie Tim Archibald, doubling the Jumbos' lead. Cooper, a forward, added his second goal of the game and seventh of the season on a power play, giving Tufts a three−goal edge heading into the first intermission.
Though Wesleyan came out strong in the second, with heavy offensive zone pressure that set up a goal by senior co−captain and forward Sam Robinson 3:29 into the period, Tufts junior forward Tom Derosa fired a shot past Archibald on the power play, restoring the Jumbos' three−goal lead.
Coming into the third period, it appeared that the Jumbos were ready to run away with the game. Just 55 seconds into the final stanza, Diaco chased Archibald out of the net with his 10th goal of the season.
With 15 minutes to play and down by four goals, Wesleyan called a time out and decided to pull its goalie in favor of an extra attacker, a move that surprised the Jumbos.
"It was definitely something I had never seen before in my hockey career," Barchard said. "But they were desperate and trying everything possible to get back in the game."
The plan backfired initially, as Diaco shot the puck into the empty net for his second goal of the game, stretching the score to 6−1, but the Cardinals cut the lead back to four goals when senior co−captain and forward David Layne found the back of the net at the 11:12 mark in the final stanza.
With the Wesleyan goalie still on the bench, Diaco added a hat−trick goal and Plimmer scored one of his own to give the Jumbos an 8−2 lead. With the game all but over, the Cardinals refused to yield and kept their goaltender out of the net, climbing back with two power−play goals in the final two minutes.
Senior forward Jeff Beck beat Barchard with five−minutes to play before Walker took a five minute major penalty that saw the Jumbos play the remainder of the game down two skaters. Cardinals sophomore forward A.J. Ferraro scored twice with the two−man advantage.
"At the end of the day, we got two points, which when you look at the standings is what's important," Antonelli said. "It was kind of frustrating because it felt like we had the game pretty well in hand, and the score doesn't necessarily reflect that. It was a weird game, but we got the win and got out of there. There's no real reason to dwell on it."
Tufts still possesses a playoff spot, something it knows can change in the final two weeks of the season if it doesn't pick up its play. The Jumbos have a break until next weekend when they take on ECAC East foes Southern Maine and University of New England on the road.
"We want to move up in the standings, not necessarily just hold on to that last playoff spot," Antonelli said. "We're trying not to worry about who's behind us, because in some sense we're in the driver's seat. If we win our games it doesn't really matter what they do."
"We have to look at our next game on Friday as the start of the playoffs," Barchard added. "We need to start rolling and start playing better."
