Heading into their matchup with No. 11 Middlebury on Saturday, the members of the No. 13 women's lacrosse team had every reason to feel confident. Tufts had won nine of its previous 10 games and stood tied for second in the NESCAC with just two conference games remaining.
But despite the good omens, the Jumbos were unable to close out the Panthers on Bello Field, losing 10-9 to drop into a tie for fourth place in the conference standings.
The Panthers opened the game on a 3-0 run, thanks to goals from three different attackmen — junior Elizabeth Garry and freshmen Michaela Colbert and Ellen Halle — and a Tufts foul that gave the visitors a free position shot.
But Tufts responded quickly with a run of its own, as freshman attackman Gabby Horner grabbed two goals in little more than five minutes that brought the Jumbos level at four.
"When we get down, we have this spark in us, that makes us realize that we need to score and we need to change the momentum," sophomore attackman Kerry Eaton said. "And when we do score, we know we need to score again quickly to keep that momentum up."
Though each team scored in bunches early in the contest, the rest of the game was marked by strong defense and trading goals, as neither squad took more than a one-goal lead at any point after the six-minute mark of the first half. Middlebury took a slim 5-4 lead into the halftime break, but Eaton scored just 31 seconds into the second half, evening the match once again.
Middlebury benefited from the remarkable second half performance of senior co-captain attackman Sally Ryan. Ryan, who leads her team in goals by 21, scored all three of her goals in the game in the second half, including the game-winner with 14 minutes remaining, giving the Panthers a 10-9 lead.
From there, both teams generated scoring chances but could not quite break down each other's defenses. Not a single goal was scored after the 14-minute mark, and Middlebury emerged from rain-soaked Bello with the win.
"I think we definitely had the potential to win, and maybe we should have won, but the cards just didn't fall our way," Eaton said. "It was a matchup between two really good teams, and it just came down to one or two plays at the end of the game."
The loss will certainly be considered a setback for the Tufts team, especially considering that the squad was playing on the friendly confines of Bello against a team that was directly behind it in the conference standings. Moreover, it was the team's third one-goal loss of the season to a NESCAC opponent, making the defeat sting even more.
"We left it all out on the field, but the weather definitely played a big factor, and their mechanics were much cleaner than ours," junior midfielder Casey Egan said. "Their passing was much better, and we played tough and tried to get back into it at the end, but they held on."
The NESCAC Tournament seeding options for Tufts now run the gamut from third to sixth, depending on tiebreaker scenarios and the outcome of the final game of the season against Bowdoin on April 29. With Trinity locked in at No. 1 and Conn. College and Wesleyan already eliminated, five teams sit between the records of 6-2 and 4-4, bringing this year's regular season down to the wire.
"We just want to continue gaining our confidence against these tough teams," Eaton said of the matchup against Bowdoin. "We know the game is going to be really close again, and we want to keep improving and stay strong heading into the playoffs."
