Four days before Saturday's road game at Trinity, the field hockey team earned its first−ever national No. 1 ranking in the latest Kookaburra/NFHCA National Coaches Poll, a testament to the then−undefeated season the Jumbos were enjoying.
When the newest poll is released on Tuesday, chances are that Tufts won't be sitting atop the field any longer.
A 2−1 overtime loss against Trinity this weekend put an end to the Jumbos' undefeated season in a scenario eerily reminiscent of their 2009 campaign. Trinity has long been Tufts' greatest competition — the Jumbos' only two regular season losses since Oct. 6, 2007, have come against the Bantams, and four of the past five Bantams−Jumbos matchups have gone into overtime. Last fall, the undefeated Jumbos on Oct. 17 faced off against the also−undefeated Bantams, eventually falling 2−1 in overtime.
Saturday's loss brings the Jumbos' record to 9−1 overall and 6−1 in the NESCAC. It continues Trinity's four−game winning streak, bringing it to 7−4 overall and 5−2 in the conference.
"We've obviously had many battles with Trinity, but [Saturday] we just didn't play our game from the start," senior Melissa Burke said. "We are very disappointed with the loss. We win as a team and we lose as a team, and we didn't make the adjustments we needed to in order to secure the win."
The Bantams took the lead midway through the first half with a goal from senior co−captain Robyn Williams. Twelve minutes later, Burke responded with an unassisted goal to tie the game. A scoreless second half brought the teams to overtime.
The clock ticked down in a nail−biting overtime with the scoreboard remaining unchanged. But with less than 10 seconds left in overtime, Trinity junior Caroline Snite grabbed a ball rebounded off of the Tufts goal and quickly passed it to Williams on her left side. With 5.5 seconds remaining, Williams hit the bottom right corner of the net for the game−winning goal, causing an exhilarated Trinity team to flood the field against the backdrop of devastated Tufts players.
"At first we weren't playing very well or to our full potential," senior Tamara Brown said. "It wasn't until they scored their first goal that we started to really play as a team.
"It's not like they are an unbeatable team," she continued. "We beat ourselves; there are things we need to fix and do better. We need to turn this energy into a positive. We'll look at film to assess how we played and see where the holes are."
The Tufts offense had been heating up recently, scoring 23 goals in their past four games before the matchup with Trinity. Trinity junior goalkeeper Gina Dinallo, however, managed to shut down the Tufts offense, which outshot Trinity 20−6. Half of those shots came from Brown and Burke alone. Dinallo finished the game with a season−high 13 saves. Tufts junior goalkeeper Marianna Zak had a pair of saves for the team.
"Going into the Trinity game last year, we were complacent," Brown said. "But this year, we talked a lot about not being satisfied. Even though we were beating teams by hefty amounts, we knew there were still things we needed to improve on."
In the nine previous games this season, Tufts has allowed just three goals and has shut out six teams.
Tufts is prepared to rebound after the tough loss with four more games left in the season, two of which are against NESCAC competitors Williams and Bowdoin. Tufts faces Gordon College at home tomorrow at 5 p.m.
"We're taking the loss as extra motivation for us," Burke said. "It was definitely a wake−up call that we need to always be at the top of our game. We need to light a fire under us and get out there and play our best. Hopefully we can use the feeling that we had at the end of the game to turn it around in the future."
