The No. 24 Jumbos exited the weekend's NESCAC tournament, hosted by Trinity, with a series of not−so−surprising results. Tufts dropped matches to Wesleyan and Colby — a pair of teams ranked above them — but took care of business against lower−ranked Conn. College. The matches brought Tufts' record to 6−12 overall and 1−4 in the NESCAC.
Tufts closed out NESCAC play for the season Saturday afternoon against No. 21 Colby, a team it lost to in a suspenseful 5−4 match just a week earlier. The Jumbos again were competitive, but again the Mules escaped with a 5−4 win.
At the 3−5 spots, junior co−captain Mercedes Barba, sophomore Jess Rubine and junior Alyse Vinoski had the first three wins for the Jumbos. Sophomore Caitlin Doherty had the fourth win, beating senior Ellie Hoyt in four games.
"It would've been awesome to beat Colby," Rubine said. "We know [sophomore No. 6] Ushashi [Basu] can win, and we know Caitlin [Doherty] can keep winning. We're getting more confident and we're using it to our benefit. It may not seem like we're playing that much better because we haven't been winning that much, but if we keep up the confidence, we could [beat them]."
Earlier Saturday, Tufts faced No. 25 Connecticut College, which was seeded No. 11 in the tournament. The Jumbos finally put together a winning effort, defeating the Camels 6−3 and snapping their seven−game losing streak.
All six wins came at the top six spots in the ladder. The most exciting match came from junior Alix Michael at the No. 1 spot. Michael won the first two games by significant margins, yet dropped the third and fourth games, keeping her fans and teammates on their toes before pulling out the win in a decisive 11−6 fifth game.
On Friday, the first round of the tournament pitted the No. 10 seed Jumbos against the No. 7 seed Cardinals, with Wesleyan taking an 8−1 victory — the second time they have defeated Tufts this season. This time around, Rubine was the lone winner on the Jumbos' side, taking down the victory at the No.4 spot against Wesleyan sophomore Tanesha Jackson in a dramatic five games, storming back to take games four and five each by a score of 11−8.
The two had battled to a fifth game earlier in the season, and Saturday's match proved just as exciting.
"I was really excited to play her again. I felt more confident in this match because I knew how she played, and I used it to my advantage," Rubine said. "We each had some really good points, but a lot of squash is in your head, and I had the confidence this time to pull it off. I knew I could've won last time, so it was great to go out there and finally do it."
The top three players in the Tufts ladder, along with Doherty in the ninth spot, each managed to take just a single game in their matches. Michael and Barba had each gone to five games in the December match−up, but could not stay quite as competitive in this one.
"I went into the match thinking that we had a good chance to win. Even though we lost 9−0 the first time, and that doesn't look so good on paper, it didn't really represent how our team played individually," Rubine said.
The Howe Cup, held at Princeton the weekend of Feb. 18, marks the final meet of the Jumbos' season. Before that, Tufts will face off against No. 28 Northeastern on Feb. 10 and No. 22 Vassar on Feb. 13. After last year's Howe Cup, Tufts moved up from the D− to the C−division. The Jumbos will need to win at least one of their two remaining matches to remain in their newfound spot. Tufts beat Northeastern twice last season, and feel that they can contend with the Brewers as well.
"It would be really big for us to stay in the C−division because we would get another chance to play teams like Colby and Bowdoin," Barba said. "If we were in the D−division, it wouldn't be as challenging, and everyone agrees that when we play more difficult opponents we always see how much better we end up playing."
