The men's soccer team lost its second game of the year on Saturday to the third-ranked nationally Amherst Lord Jeffs before returning home to top Trinity 2-0 less than 24 hours later. Tufts now holds a respectable 3-2 mark against in-conference opponents in what has been a competitive NESCAC season this year.
The women's soccer team came away from this weekend's doubleheader with mixed feelings after winning a hard-fought game against Amherst in overtime on Saturday and then falling to NESCAC powerhouse Trinity with a lopsided showing on Sunday.
With 45 seconds left in the second overtime, it looked like the women's soccer team was going to leave Wesleyan with a 0-0 tie. But in the waning seconds of the game, the Jumbos were able to take the ball from one end of the field to the other, and freshman midfielder Robin Estus sunk a goal with just under half a minute to go.
In a game that featured stellar goalkeeping, the men's soccer team was unable to break through and settled for a 0-0 double-overtime draw against Plymouth State.
For the past three years, a staple of the Tufts men's soccer team has been its strong recruiting classes, which have made an immediate impact on the pitch. Two years ago, it was the dynamic duo of now-junior forwards Maxime Hoppenot and Gus Santos, who combined to score 13 goals their rookie seasons to go along with Santos' NESCAC Rookie of the Year award.
After winning its first three contests, the men's soccer team dropped its first game of the year on Tuesday, falling to Wesleyan 1-0 in an overtime thriller.
The men's soccer team opened its 2013 campaign on Saturday with a bang, upending NESCAC rival Bates, 3-0. Today, Tufts will bring the show back to Somerville to take on Suffolk University in its home opener on Kraft Field.
Three years ago, the eighth-seeded Bates Bobcats shocked the top-seeded Jumbos in a NESCAC quarterfinals penalty shootout after 110 minutes of scoreless play. Bates ended Tufts playoff run in a 3-2 shootout that has fueled a rivalry between the two schools ever since.
The women's soccer team hopes to make 2013 a turnaround year. A disappointing 2012 campaign saw the team go 2-6-2 in the NESCAC and 4-6-4 overall after starting 1-5-1. However, the team rebounded with a strong second half, losing only once in its final seven games. In the end, the first-half slide proved too much to overcome as the Jumbos finished 10th in the NESCAC and failed to reach the playoffs for the first time since the NESCAC adopted a postseason in 2000.
The Tufts men's soccer team enters the 2013 season with expectations at an all-time high - and for good reason. The Jumbos proved their ability to compete in the NESCAC last year with a 5-2-3 record in conference, a semifinal loss to Williams in the conference tournament and its first NCAA tournament bid since 1996.
For 71 minutes on Saturday, the women's soccer team looked to be on the verge of something miraculous. After struggling early on in the season, the Jumbos found themselves needing two wins in their final two games against a pair of top?fiveNESCAC teams in order to even have a chance of making the conference tournament.
In a game with major postseason implications, the women's soccer team stepped up in a big way Saturday afternoon at Kraft Field, drubbing conference rival Hamilton College, 4?0.
In what was perhaps their toughest test of the season thus far, the women's soccer team went toe?to?toe with Williams on Saturday, ultimately falling to the No. 22 Ephs in gut?wrenching fashion, 3?2.
After a disappointing start to the season, winning just one game in September, the women's soccer team has used the first weeks of October to pull a dramatic 180. With a scoreless draw on Kraft Field against Endicott on Wednesday, it extended its unbeaten streak to four games.
As the whistle blew for the end of regulation in its road match again Conn. College on Saturday, the situation seemed all too familiar for the women's soccer team. In a season defined by bad breaks, this game - the team's eighth in which they had failed to score in regulation and their third to go to overtime tied 0-0 - was beginning to feel redundant.
The problems that have plagued the women's soccer team all season long, namely too many injuries and a lack of scoring, reared their ugly heads again this weekend. Losses to NESCAC opponents Colby on Saturday and Trinity on Sunday dropped the women's soccer team to 1-4-1 on the season and kept Tufts winless in conference play.
The scoring woes continued for the Jumbos on Wednesday night, but an incredible performance from junior keeper Kristin Wright and a quickly improving backline combined to help the team hold on for a 0?0 draw on the road at nationally?ranked No. 19 Wheaton.
