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.
On Saturday afternoon, the No. 4 men's lacrosse team (11-1, 8-0 NESCAC) conquered one of its oldest demons, upending No. 10 Middlebury in an 11-8, come-from-behind victory, the Jumbos first win on the road against the Panthers in coach Mike Daly's 13-year tenure.
In softball and baseball, statistics and record books are sacred.
With the 2010-11 season winding down, the softball team is trying to make a late push in the NESCAC East standings. In a season marked by inconsistency, the Jumbos took a step toward this goal at home on Friday, when they swept a woeful Colby squad 6-0 and 4-0 on the strength of two fantastic pitching performances.
The No. 4 men's lacrosse team is in some serious need of a pick-me-up.
In case you weren't paying attention to the first week of the NBA playoffs (though it's unclear why you wouldn't have been), you've missed some of the best first-round action in recent memory. But to catch up, here are three of the top storylines so far:
The football team has hired Kevin Farr as its new defensive backs coach, the Athletics Department announced yesterday. Farr comes to Tufts following a nine-season stint as the defensive coordinator at Saint Lawrence University, where he helped lead the Saints to the Liberty League championship and a first-place conference ranking in four defensive categories, including total defense.
Recently, I was asked by a hallmate to explain how the European soccer structure worked. I thought, "Well, it's really simple," before launching into a 15−minute explanation. Turns out, it isn't so easy to understand, and I realized that no one had ever really explained to me how soccer was organized — I just sort of picked it up over the years of listening to soccer commentary and reading soccer articles on the Internet.
Johann Schmidt wants you to join the Tufts diving team. The qualifications? Commitment, curiosity and athletic ability — in that order.
Freshman catcher Jo Clair, shown here earlier this season, set the Tufts single-season home run record with a two-run blast yesterday against Bridgewater State. She now has 15 dingers this season, breaking the previous mark set in 2005. The Jumbos, who won the first game 5-0 and the second 8-1, still have seven games left, including a three-game NESCAC series at home against Colby this weekend.
After a fall campaign that saw the golf team tie for 30th out of 37 competitors at the New England Championships last October, the Jumbos returned to action this spring with respectable showings in three tournaments: the Worcester State Invitational on Tuesday in Worcester, Mass.; the Western New England College (WNEC) Invitational last Thursday in Springfield, Mass.; and the Hampton Inn Invitational the weekend of April 9−10 in North Dartmouth, Mass.
A full season of practice and hard work culminated on April 10 in Chicago when the men's fencing team placed eighth at the United States Association of Collegiate Fencing Club's National Championship. Over 700 collegiate fencers gathered at host University of Chicago to compete for the club crown.
Tennessee is typically known for its country music, whiskey, country music about Tennessee whiskey and, of course, Pat Summitt. At Tufts, though, perhaps the best thing to come out of the Volunteer State is a freshman who wears an Under Armour skullcap everyday to contain his long hair.
History was nearly made indoors at the Gantcher Center yesterday.
Despite the poor weather conditions on Saturday, the men's track and field team came away from the MIT Invitational with some strong performances.
The other day, someone asked what I thought about the NBA playoffs — who would win, when would the Heat lose, would the Mavs show up, etc. I stared at them blankly for a few minutes, offered a halfhearted "Celtics? Maybe?" and realized that my head just isn't into basketball anymore. I'll pay a little more attention to the final two rounds, but for now, I'm all about baseball. And not just about those teams with $100 payrolls, but also those with $50 payrolls.
Both the men's and women's crew teams hit the water this weekend, hosting Middlebury College on the Malden River in a head-to-head regatta before making their way to Worcester on Sunday to compete in a multi-team invitational. Skidmore, William Smith, Washington College, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) were all in attendance in Worcester, Mass., giving Tufts a tough challenge as the teams sought to prepare physically and mentally for the upcoming ECACs and New England Championships.
Just one weekend after a meet with some of the best racing weather New England can offer, Boston was hit with a cold and blustery day. Despite the conditions, the women's track and field team still managed to leave the non-scoring MIT Invitational with five individual victories.
With the NESCAC East regular-season title — and with it the right to host the conference championships — still very much up for grabs, Tufts could not afford to give up ground on its trip to Bowdoin this weekend. The Jumbos had reason to be confident, given that they had never dropped a series to the Polar Bears in the 10-year history of the NESCAC.
