While most Tufts students spend spring break either going home to relax or taking a trip to warmer climates, the athletes of many spring teams will be hard at work on the court or the field. Here's a look at those teams that will be competing over the next week.
Baseball | Jumbos to hit the ground running
Coach John Casey's squad will travel to Virginia for its annual spring-break trip to start the season, playing 11 games in 10 days. Though the Jumbos are just seeing real-game action for the first time, they will be taking on teams that are essentially in midseason, a difficulty that led to the team going just 2-9 on the expedition last year.
But with the team having graduated just five seniors last year, the players are confident that the trip will go a bit better than last time. And even if it doesn't, they know that they will come back to Tufts prepared for the highest level of competition. That's what happened last year, when the team returned to go 17-10 over the rest of the season.
The Jumbos use the trip as a chance to establish starters and roles for the rest of the season, and it will be interesting to see which players, particularly among the underclassmen, emerge as contributors. Keep an eye on sophomore Chris DeGoti, who led the team with a 3.43 ERA in 39.1 innings pitched last season, as he could emerge on a Tufts team that lacks a clear ace at the front of the rotation.
—David Heck
Softball | Tufts hoping to avoid drop-off from last season
Tufts will take the field on Sunday for the first time since its World Series run of a year ago, opening its 2010 season with a doubleheader against La Sierra University in Orange, Calif.
The Jumbos' demanding spring break schedule at the Sun West Tournament will feature 12 games in the course of one week, with some marquee matchups on tap against national contenders Redlands and St. Thomas. Thus coach Cheryl Milligan will be given plenty of opportunities to gauge the progress of her new-look squad, which graduated eight members of last year's record-setting, 44-win team.
Tufts would be hard-pressed to match the prolific results it recorded at the Sun West Tournament a year ago, when it swept the 11-game slate — and got two extra-innings wins along the way — to kick-start a regular season in which it went a sparkling 35-1. Since 2007, the Jumbos have gone a combined 26-11 during their annual spring break trips out West.
—Sapna Bansil
Men's Lacrosse | Team looks to continue early dominance
The nationally ranked No. 9 Jumbos have started the season as well as they could have hoped, beating NESCAC opponent Amherst on the road 18-8 and trouncing Lasell at home 20-4. The team will look to continue that success this week, when it plays three games: two against conference opponents Colby and Williams, and one against No. 20 Skidmore.
The Jumbos will kick off the action against Colby, which appears to be the easiest opponent of the three. The Mules finished sixth in the NESCAC last season, and Tufts went 2-0 against them by a combined score of 26-17.
Tufts will then take on Skidmore, which won its first three games of the season by an average of 7.3 goals but lost its most recent contest to No. 14 Haverford by a score of 12-8. The last time the Jumbos faced the Thoroughbreds was in their 2008 season-opener, when Tufts won by a comfortable 12-3 margin.
The Jumbos will end the spring-break action with a game at home against the Ephs on March 27. Williams has finished fifth and sixth in the conference the past two years, but the Ephs did upset Tufts in the first round of the NESCAC Tournament in 2008, so the Jumbos are sure not to take them lightly.
—David Heck
Women's Lacrosse | Jumbos to face defending champs
The women's lacrosse team could face its toughest test of the early season over spring break in the form of the two-time defending NESCAC champion Colby Mules. The Mules have picked up where they left off last season, winning their opener against Williams and delivering a dominating effort in a 21-4 win over Southern Maine.
Tufts and Colby have historically played close games, as five of the last seven contests between the two sides have been decided by just a single goal.
Tufts will also be taking a trip over the break to upstate New York to take on Buffalo State on Wednesday. The Bengals were the best team in the SUNYAC conference in the regular season before losing in the conference tournament to Cortland State, and could provide a non-conference test for Tufts.
The Jumbos will then head to Williams next weekend to face the Ephs, who beat them twice last season. Williams handed Tufts its only regular season loss and then upset it in the NESCAC semifinals in overtime 11-10, so the Jumbos will be looking for some revenge when they head to Williamstown on March 27.
—Ethan Landy
Women's Tennis | Team set for challenging break schedule
The women's tennis team will head back to Florida for its annual trip to the Sunshine State over spring break, but this time it will be hoping to actually get in some matches.
Last year most of the team's scheduled contests were rained out, allowing it to only play one match to open the season, a 5-2 loss to Rhode Island. But this time Tufts is hoping to play a fuller schedule to get back into the swing of things for the spring season. It will be the Jumbos' first time back on the court after a banner fall campaign which saw senior tri-captain Meghan McCooey and junior tri-captain Julia Browne win the Intercollegiate Tennis Association doubles national championship and five players reach the final 32 of New Englands.
Tufts will play five matches over the course of a five-day span, starting with Monday's contest with Northwood and ending on Friday with a match at the Florida Institute of Technology against Div. I Cornell University. The Big Red will be a great test for the Jumbos before they return home and start the brunt of their NESCAC schedule after the break.
—Ethan Landy
Men's Tennis | Tufts taking trip to New Jersey
Last year, coach Doug Eng and the men's tennis team took a spring-break trip to Florida, playing the No. 32, 31 and 17 ranked programs in the country at the time.
This season, the Jumbos will again be going on a trip — but it won't exactly be Disney World. Tufts will travel to New York to take on nationally ranked No. 22 Vassar on March 27, and they will follow up by taking on Stevens in New Jersey the next day.
The high level of competition will be crucial to preparing the Jumbos for their spring season in the cutthroat NESCAC, which boasts four teams in the top 19 of the national rankings and three in the top 10.
Tufts put together a winning 9-7 record last year, but the team stumbled to a 3-5 conference record. The Jumbos will hope to get the ball rolling during their spring-break matches and keep that momentum going into the next week, when they will face both Middlebury and Bowdoin.
—David Heck
