After beginning the season with a trip to Georgia and a date with Emory, the No. 3 team in the country, Tufts, since returning to New England, seems to have dispelled any fears that its confidence had dimmed.
The team extended its winning streak to an impressive six matches and boosted its overall record to 6-2 with a hard-fought straight-set victory against the Brandeis Judges on Tuesday evening in Cousens Gymnasium.
The match was competitive throughout, and the Judges (8-3) tested the Jumbos from the onset. The first set featured 13 ties and four lead changes, and even as the Jumbos seemed poised to win, the Judges were able to capitalize on several Jumbo mistakes and tied the score at 24. But the Jumbos responded with two quick points — one on an impressive kill by senior quad-captain Caitlin Updike — to take the set by the count of 26-24.
In the second set, Brandeis was able to take advantage of a miscue by Tufts to bounce back from a 4-0 deficit and kept the set close, with the last tie coming at 22-all. Yet once again, the Jumbos were able to recover from their earlier mistakes and rattle off three quick points to take the set and gain a firm grasp over the match. While it was Updike who came through in the critical moments, senior quad-captain Nancy Shrodes also made a large contribution in the set and finished the match with seven kills and four digs.
"It certainly wasn't our best showing, but we got it done at the end of the day," Updike said. Updike had 19 kills on 53 attempts against the Judges, complementing her already impressive ratio of 3.23 kills per set this season. "We really let them back into the game early with some missed serves and other mistakes, but we pulled through in the end," she said.
Despite the errors in the first two sets, the Jumbos finally put it all together in the third set, ending the match with a definitive 25-18 victory.
"We may not have started out as well as we could have," junior libero Audrey Kuan, who is also an online editor for the Daily, said. "But we really put it together at the end. We started talking more and our flow was much, much better."
Sophomore setter Kendall Lord was also a key component in the Tufts victory, contributing a match-high 33 assists. She continues to impress in her quest to replace former All-American setter Dena Feiger (LA '10), who averaged over 11 assists per match in 2009. Lord's talents were most prominently displayed in the third set, where Tufts' quicker ball movement deceived Brandeis' blockers on several points.
"Our passing really picked up at the end, which allowed our hitters to really connect and win key points," Kuan said.
Despite the positives, Tufts will have to clean up some of its mistakes during this weekend's MIT Invitational tournament, in which they will face two tough opponents in Smith and Vassar.
They will also be gearing up for an Oct. 1 trip to Middletown, Conn., to face conference rivals Conn. College, Trinity and Wesleyan. A triplet of wins there will go a long way for the Jumbos in their quest to host the NESCAC Tournament for the third consecutive year.
"It's getting the ‘W' that counts," Updike said. "We always like to win, and that's the bottom line."
