After two more slip−ups this weekend in home games against Colby and Bowdoin, the men's hockey team's losing streak is now at eight.
On Saturday, Tufts faced Colby, who entered the game 5−8−1 overall and 4−5−1 in the NESCAC. The Jumbos took the lead early after seniors Tom DeRosa and Andy Davis each contributed a goal to give Tufts a 2−1 advantage at the end of the first period.
"I think in both games we started off with a great effort and really put good pressure on," senior Dylan Cooper said.
In the second period, however, the Jumbos were unable to extend their lead and were denied 17 times by Colby senior goalie Cody McKinney. Tufts junior goalie Evin Koleini was solid in his own right, rejecting 13 Colby shots in the second period as well.
In the third period, with the score tied at 2−2, Colby's junior forward Tom McGinn broke the ice. He added two back−to−back goals to put the Mules ahead.
"Coach goes over their better players and who to look out for," Cooper said. "I think we had one of our guys, Nick Pappas, shadow [McGinn], and it seemed to slow him down a bit, but he was still pretty effective in the end."
Those tallies proved to be the difference for Colby en route to a 5−2 win. It was Tufts' second conference defeat in two days.
The first loss came Friday night, when the Jumbos, hoping to end their six−game losing streak, took on No. 4 Bowdoin. The visiting Polar Bears, however, outscored Tufts 5−2 for their ninth victory in 10 games.
Tufts took an early lead when freshman Kyle Gallegos, the team's leading goal scorer, recorded his 10th goal of the season less than five minutes into the first stanza. Just a few minutes later, the Polar Bears struck back, as sophomore Daniel Weiniger tied the game up on a power−play goal.
Going into the first intermission, Tufts squandered a minute−long 5−on−3 power play advantage and a chance to regain the lead. Throughout the night, the Polar Bears effectively silenced the Jumbos' power play attack, killing five out of six penalties.
"We've been having a little trouble lately on power plays," Gallegos said. "But we just need to work harder than the other team on them in practice."
As the first period drew to a close, Bowdoin senior Jeff Fanning added a go−ahead score to give the Polar Bears a 2−1 edge at the end of the period.
The Bowdoin lead stretched to 5−1 in the second period, as the Polar Bears tallied three additional times in just 4:14.
Tufts sophomore Trevor John added a goal late in the second frame, but it would be the last Tufts goal of the night and not enough to overcome the early Bowdoin lead.
Fanning, who is seventh in the NESCAC in points, led the Polar Bears with two goals and an assist.
"We had a gameplan for controlling [Fanning], but it was kind of hard," Gallegos said. "I just personally kind of forget about him and played my own game because it's tough to control him."
Although the Jumbos lost to both of their Maine rivals, Koleini was impressive, stopping 45 of Colby's 50 shots on Saturday.
"Replacing an all−American is not easy to do," Gallegos said. "Koleini hasn't played in many close games but from what he's seen, he's played really well."
But Tufts was simply not able to produce enough offense to snap its losing streak.
"We'd been generating a good number of shots, but some of those teams really put a lot of pressure on the goal." Cooper said. "Something we need to work on is putting more traffic in front of the net on our own end."
Excitement and intensity weren't a problem this weekend, with both games played at home in front of a loud crowd. Yet the team is still searching for answers on how to turn its season around.
"They were home games so we were all pretty excited, pretty pumped up to come out," Gallegos said.
"We got some bad bounces our way and it kind of shifted momentum away from us and it was just kind of hard to regain it after that. We need to keep things simple and just keep working hard."
With the losses, Tufts dropped to 4−10−1. The Jumbos next will travel to Vermont on Jan. 28 to take on Castleton.
