The baseball team exploded for 11 runs in the seventh inning of its game against Mass Maritime yesterday, drowning the Buccaneers 14-1 on Huskins Field. With the win, the Jumbos improve to 5-10 and have now taken three of their last four contests, with the exception being a loss to Bates in game two of Saturday's doubleheader.
College basketball is so much better than the NBA." I can't count the number of times I've heard statements to that effect, and I'm sure you've heard them too. A lot of people share that sentiment, but honestly, I couldn't disagree more. And it's not just because I'm bitter about how busted my bracket is.
New ownership was supposed to revitalize the Tampa Bay Lightning this season. Instead, the Lightning face another poor finish, with just 65 points in 77 games.
Despite the fact that the nationally ranked No. 9 sailing team did not perform particularly well as a whole this past weekend, it still might move up in the national rankings.
In its first 17 games, the softball team has traveled to the West Coast and back, recorded four shutouts, five mercy-rule victories and three NESCAC East wins, emerging on the winning side of every single game.
The men's crew team unexpectedly kicked off its spring schedule on Sunday in drab conditions with five boats racing against Div. I UMass. "It was a kind of last-minute race," senior co-captain Robbie Bayless said. "Coach talked to the coach at UMass, and they weren't racing this weekend, so they were nice enough to come on over to race with us today." It was the team's first competition since the fall schedule closed with the renowned Head of the Charles Regatta. In the varsity eight race, UMass posted a 22-second victory, finishing with a 6:26.57 time on the 2,000-meter course, while Tufts crossed the finish line in 6:48.55. "We still have some work to do — some technique to straighten out and some strategy to work on — but we had [good starts] across the board, and our finishes and sprints were pretty good, especially from the second four," Bayless said. "We just need to work on the body of the race." The Jumbos managed a better outcome in the varsity four, finishing in 7:14.48 and picking up the win with UMass being disqualified for lane interference. "It was a narrow river, and their coxswain steered the boat over onto our side," Bayless said. "The officiating boat trailing us said several times ‘UMass come to starboard,' but their boat was ahead of us, and we were making a move, so their coxswain couldn't see us. The officiating boat was behind yelling, and their rowers could see what was going on, but somehow they didn't communicate it to the coxswain. "Oars clashed, and [senior David Orellano], who was sitting at the three seat, his oar caught a crab," Bayless continued. "A crab's when an oar is taken out of your hands and pinned against the boat, and he caught a crab, and his oar hit him in the chest. We had to come to a full stop and start rowing again. It wasn't ideal, but we ended up finishing, and the ruling was determined that UMass was in our lane." Tufts fell in the second varsity eight by 12 seconds, as the Jumbos came in at a time of 7:01.84, but nearly pulled out a win in the second varsity four, falling by a mere half-second at 7:23.20 to UMass' 7:22.68. The result bodes well for the Jumbos, as Tufts is prioritizing the four-man boats this season with the team's personnel more suited to that type of crew. "We got off to kind of a slow start," junior Jonathan Jo said. "We fell behind early in the race, so we were down maybe a boat length. After about two-thirds of the race, we were able to fight back and gain some ground and we were fighting pretty hard. In the end, we lost by half a second, but to fight back and put all your effort in, and then fall short by just half a second, it's definitely disappointing … Maybe if we had started our sprint just a few strokes earlier or if one other thing had gone our way." Jo rowed in three events on the day and admitted that by the end, he was exhausted. Senior co-captain Nahvid Etedali was held out due to back problems. "Within our fours, we definitely are going to try to start sprinting a little earlier from now on," Jo said. "Our four rowers are more power as compared to endurance." The novice four competition was shortened to a 1,500-meter race due to the weather conditions, but it made little difference as Tufts was blown out of the water by the UMass squad by finishing times of 6:21.6 to 5:40.1. Still, as the race was the first of the spring season, Tufts was pleased with the results. "For the freshman four, it was their first race of the spring, and they did pretty well," Bayless said. "I'm pleased they had a good row. They didn't fare so well in the results, but it was a good first race for them, and now they have one under their belts." The day was marked by dreary weather, with a strong headwind and intermittent heavy rain that made the conditions on the water less than ideal. "The weather today was pretty bad," Bayless said. "We were going into a headwind, which makes the race a little more difficult. But other than today, we've only had a couple cold days. This was rare bad weather." The team stayed at Tufts over spring break, and they have had the chance to row outdoors for a couple weeks. Over the break, they worked out on erg machines and lifted weights, and they had two-a-day practices once the weather was nice enough for them to get out on the water. Now that classes have started, the team rows in the mornings, getting to the boat house at 6 a.m. "We've been working on developing boat chemistry and getting used to each other's rowing styles," Jo said. "We want to maximize our set and swing and have the most efficient rowing style possible." For Tufts, this weekend's races marked the first step toward duplicating last season's success. "We finished fifth in New Englands last year, and we're just trying to medal and potentially win New Englands this year," Jo said. "That would be our goal. We had a shot at it last season, so we want to live up to our potential." "We had a really great season last year, and ideally, we'd like to emulate that," Bayless added. "If we had both our first four and our second four competing for medals at New Englands and ECACs, that would be great."
Taking to the water for its first race of the season, the women's crew knew it wanted to make a statement against local out-of-conference foe Wellesley, a squad that had outperformed the Jumbos just last fall at the Head of the Charles. What Tufts did on the Malden River on Saturday was less of a statement and more of an exclamation, sweeping the Blue in all five head-to-head races and handily dominating the visitors from nearby Wellesley in four of those matchups. "We were psyched," senior co-captain Kaitlyn Mula said. "It was the first race, and at the first race you're always really excited and a little overly anxious, and it's always kind of that deal where, ‘Can you apply everything you learned in practice to the real deal?' And I feel like we really did a good job of doing that." Rowing under virtually perfect conditions, the varsity eight defeated Wellesley by a comfortable 9.5-second margin, 6:53.48 to the Blue's 7:03.00 showing. Indeed, the Tufts second varsity eight, which cruised to an 11-second victory over its counterpart, ended up clocking in at 7:03.89, less than a second behind the time of Wellesley's first varsity eight. Competition between the third varsity eights marked the closest race of the day as the Jumbos started out with a modest lead, though the crew from Wellesley refused to surrender, challenging Tufts all the way to the finish line. Tufts held on to win that race by less than a half second, crossing the line at 7:13.29 ahead of the visitors' 7:13.74 effort. "I think the most exciting part was that even though the third varsity had a really close race at the end, they were out fast at the starting line, and that's something that's always been a challenge in the past, just being really explosive and aggressive within the first [500 meters] and getting a big lead on the other team," senior co-captain Steph St. Thomas said. "And it was really exciting to see it all in five boats [that] we were able to accomplish that. So it's definitely a good way to start the season and to start preparing for what else we need to work on." Despite the gaudiness of the numbers behind their successes — Tufts' all-freshman novice eight and second novice combination eight also cruised to victory by 25.48-second and 37.38-second margins, respectively — the Jumbos maintain that there is still room for improvement. It's worth noting that when Tufts and Wellesley squared off to launch the spring season last year, the Tufts varsity eight finished in 7:15.70, over 20 seconds slower than the boat's Saturday time. "It was wasn't our very best row, but I feel like it was a great place to start and it really brought together the girls, who after working for months and months without seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, realized, ‘Wow, I'm way stronger now, I'm rowing faster,' so it was really great," Mula said. "It's great to win by such a huge margin, but then you have to think in the picture that, come New Englands, is Wellesley our biggest competitor? No. Do we still have work to do? Yes. And I feel like it's a motivator and a really good way of planning out the next month." "I think especially having that sort of success and saying that wasn't our best row is a really positive thing because we know that we can improve so much on that and be even faster and more explosive," St. Thomas added. While acknowledging last week that Wellesley usually proves a competitive opponent — during the first race of the spring last year against the Blue at home, the Tufts varsity and second varsity eights both won, though by much narrower margins than Saturday, while the third varsity and novice eights both lost — the crew did not know what the lineup would look like until after Friday's final seat-racing to determine placement. In the end, the varsity eight represented diversity among the classes with three seniors, four sophomores and two freshmen, including the coxswain, but was composed somewhat differently compared to the projected boat roster from earlier last week. "[Coach Gary Caldwell] made it perfectly clear that people are going to change around not based on erg scores, not based on history in the boat, and sometimes I feel like the whole is greater than the sum of its parts in a given boat," Mula said. "Even though we do have rowers with superior erg scores to others, sometimes different combinations fit differently in different boats, and basically that's the end of it. We still have a lot of work to do; these boatings are not set, they are probably never going to be set, and people are going to be switching around day after day." "I think given our time constraint for the week, it was the fastest boat that we could have put out this weekend, but we definitely left the week knowing that there's still a lot of unanswered questions in terms of how to make it faster," St. Thomas added. Tufts will continue to sort out and determine the composition of its boats this week — St. Thomas, a key member for the varsity boat, will return after having missed Saturday's race due to injury — for races on the Malden this weekend when it takes on Mt. Holyoke and Vermont on Saturday, followed by Tulane on Sunday. And while the crew looks to maintain the same aggression at the start that it did against the Blue on Saturday to build early leads, there is an understanding that against tighter opposition, the final burst toward the finish will be vital. "[One thing about] having such a big lead on Wellesley in at least both the varsity and the [second varsity] is that it didn't give us as much an opportunity to work on our sprint … That's probably not something that's going to happen again," St. Thomas said. "And Mt. Holyoke is always a really competitive team with us and we see them again at New Englands and ECACs, so it's good to have that practice and will be a good thing for us to focus on in terms of if we can be explosive at the start and explosive in the middle to really finish it off with a sprint at the end. "Last spring we came back from many races that we were down in with our sprint, and so it's a lot more comfortable to set the lead at the beginning, and I think it's something that a lot of girls that were in the varsity last year aren't used to," she added.
The UConn men's basketball team made the Final Four on Saturday. The Huskies have demolished the competition thus far, winning by successive margins of 56, 26, 12 and seven. So they're good. But, even so, it's hard to root for them amid the controversy that is swirling around them. UConn first caught my eye when coach Jim Calhoun went on a tirade during a press conference. He lost it when a freelance writer asked a question about Calhoun's relatively exorbitant salary, which at $1.6 million is by far the highest of any state employee in Connecticut. UConn is a state school, and a lot of people are upset about Calhoun's $1.6 mil when the state is struggling to cut its $2 billion budget deficit. Calhoun decided to pull a Sprewell, retorting "Not a dime back. I'd like to be able to retire someday." Calhoun comes off like a jerk here, no pun intended. Leaving aside the fact that this statement is insensitive to the less well-off — who somehow manage to retire even though they don't earn $1.6 million a year — the statement is offensive to everyone. Not only that, Calhoun scoffed at the $1.6 million figure that has been publicly reported, bluntly saying, "I make a lot more than that." I imagine that if pressed on this lapse in judgment, he would plead temporary insanity. Connecticut's governor, Jodi Rell, called it "an embarrassing display." Calhoun's response: "We bring in $12 million to this university." Well, that figure doesn't include the basketball program's $6 million in expenses, but still, Calhoun does run a profitable athletics program, so good for him. Again, I raise the question: Shouldn't the millions that UConn's basketball program rakes in be distributed partly among the players and not just coaches? Well, in UConn's case, maybe it is. Last week, Yahoo! Sports reported that Jim Calhoun and the university's athletics program had violated NCAA rules with their recruitment process. UConn signee Nate Miles was given lodging, transportation and meals by the school — all prohibited by the NCAA. The chief culprit linking Miles and the school was agent and booster Josh Nochimson, who provided his services to Miles. Assistant coach Tom Moore had been in contact with both of them, and presumably, if a member of the coaching staff knew of the matter, it would be naïve to believe that this was an isolated incident. Coaches are permitted a single call a month to high school juniors, but UConn's staff sent over 1,500 text messages to Miles in a single month. Calhoun attempted to discredit the story by saying that "it was a blog story," implying that the Internet is a cesspool of falsehoods. Calhoun also stated that the NCAA had granted Miles eligibility, so therefore there was no malfeasance. The NCAA of course responded, stating that it did not have all the information about Mills in hand, so its ruling at the time was wrong, similar to Calhoun's salary. I'm going to say that Calhoun could use a publicity agent. That, or a functional cerebrum. There's another "con" to the story. Miles himself once egregiously broke the law. Before he even played for UConn, he was charged with violating a restraining order. The event occurred all of 16 minutes after a court had granted the order to a woman who said Miles had been harassing her. It was later reported that another UConn recruit, Ater Majok, was linked to Nochimson. Again, Nochimson's a shady guy. He was accused of stealing money from UConn alum Rip Hamilton. Majok eventually signed with UConn and will be playing next year. But still there's more, as starter A.J. Price was charged with stealing a laptop a few years ago. Overall, the graduation rate for UConn basketball players is a cool 33 percent, which is about as low as it gets. If I have one piece of advice for Calhoun, it's this: Retire early. You've earned it.
In a year where the Western conference has six likely playoff teams within two-and-a-half games of one another, any team could make a surprise run and reach the championship. So why not the Portland Trail Blazers? The young team from the Pacific Northwest is already 46-27 this season after finishing at .500 last year and is clinging to the fifth spot in the tight Western Conference. Many thought that Portland had the look of a playoff team, but few thought they would be this good. And while everyone in the West is chasing the Los Angeles Lakers, who have a sizeable lead at the top of the conference, come playoff time the defending conference champs will not be unbeatable. The Blazers appear to be headed for the playoffs for the first time under head coach Nate McMillan and the first time since the 2002-03 season. Portland has been playing well as of late, going 10-5 in March with two of those losses occurring in overtime games. Six of the team's last seven wins have been by double digits, including two straight 20-point victories. The Blazers are in the top 10 in points allowed per game — a great accomplishment for a young team — and they have been doing it for the most part without the defensive presence of Greg Oden in the middle, with the rookie just getting back to playing significant minutes after sitting out a recent 15-game stretch. Portland is also ranked in the top 10 in field goal percentage and is one of the best home teams in the league with a 30-7 record in the Rose Garden. When Portland scores, they win — the Blazers are 31-4 when scoring 100 points or more, and they average 11.4 points more per game in wins than losses. While the Blazers have an array of young talent, this is unquestionably Brandon Roy's team. The third-year guard is averaging 23 points per game, seventh in the NBA, and also averages roughly five rebounds and five assists per game. Roy is the engine that makes his team go, and he is usually responsible for handling the ball as well as shouldering the offensive load; he has led or been tied for the lead on his team in scoring in 46 of the 69 games he has played this season. It helps, then, that Portland's other third-year star, LaMarcus Aldridge, has continued his strong play from last season and has gotten better as the year has progressed, posting his highest averages of the season for points and rebounds in March to bring them to 18.1 points and 7.3 rebounds. Aldridge has great touch on his midrange game and is a good rebounder as well, giving the Blazers a quality big man to team with Roy. The Blazers also have some other nice pieces in play, and with an abundance of talent, they are one of the deepest teams in the league. The second unit features the team's third leading scorer in Travis Outlaw, who pours in 12.7 points per game, the duo of Spanish guards, Rudy Fernandez and Sergio Rodriguez, in the backcourt and the team's leading rebounder in Joel Pryzbilla, who has stepped in to start as of late with Oden's injury troubles and is 15th in the NBA in rebounds per game. Portland also has other players that do the little things that help a team win. It is often a cliché to talk about role players, but the guys that turn a playoff team into a contender are not the stars, but those who exert their influence on the game without much fanfare. For Portland, that means guys like Nicolas Batum, the rookie who provides energy and defense, and Steve Blake, a deadly shooter from downtown who is in the top 15 in three-point percentage in the league and has seven 20-point games this year despite missing 13 games in the middle of the season. Unfortunately for the Blazers, the fifth spot where they now stand would set up a first-round matchup with the Houston Rockets. The season series is currently split at 1-1, and the Rockets have been hot, going 11-4 through March. The Western race is so crowded, however, that Portland could easily fall or move up, and the matchups will likely not be set in stone until the final games of the season. Whoever it plays, this Portland team has done nothing but exceed expectations all year, and there is no reason to think it cannot silence critics in the playoffs. A championship might be asking a little much in one of the strongest years the league has seen in quite some time. Still, this is a team that is primed to contend in the future, especially when one considers how great they are currently playing.
A 12-day layoff didn't slow the Tufts women's tennis team, which blew past a pair of NESCAC foes on Saturday in its first home matches of the spring campaign. After besting Colby 7-2 to start the day, nationally ranked No. 11 Tufts trounced Bates 9-0 to improve to 4-1 in dual matches this season. For the Jumbos, the weekend was a positive first step in a season in which they expect to finish amongst the conference's elite. "It was definitely good for us to boost our confidence by getting these wins," junior captain Meghan McCooey said. "We worked really hard all offseason in practice, so it's nice to get those wins early in the season. But at the same time, we know that the teams are only going to get stronger, and we're going to need to get better every day if we want to beat teams like Amherst and Williams that will come up later in the season." As part of their victories, the Jumbos went a perfect 6-of-6 in doubles play, getting a combined four wins from two recently formed pairings, the tandem of freshman Jenn LaCara and junior Erica Miller at second doubles and the duo of senior Mari Homma and sophomore Edwina Stewart at third doubles. Saturday marked the first official match results for either team, both of which debuted during a March 17 match against Palm Beach Atlantic that was ultimately rained out. "At No. 2 and 3, starting halfway through the Colby match and then for the entire Bates match, I was happy with how the teams played," coach Kate Bayard said. "They worked well from a tennis standpoint and a personality standpoint. All three teams looked like they had been paired together for a while, which is a good sign considering a couple of the teams are new." Meanwhile, sophomore Julia Browne and McCooey kept rolling along at first doubles, posting a pair of 8-2 victories to remain unbeaten over four career dual match appearances. In the three matches it has played since winning a national championship at the end of the fall, the duo, ranked second in the Northeast, has yielded just seven games. "We definitely have gotten used to each other's games," McCooey said. "That's helped a lot, and having a national championship under our belt gives us a lot of confidence. To know we can beat any team out there, it's really motivating. We're just hoping to keep that up and help the other doubles teams, too, so that we can all just play to our maximum capability." On the singles side, Browne made quick work of her opponents at the No. 1 spot, while McCooey added dominant straight-set victories of her own at second singles. Right behind them, Miller dispatched Colby sophomore Katie Brezinski and Bates freshman Meg Anderson at No. 3, upping her singles record this spring to 3-0. After spending the fall semester abroad, Miller has returned and helped solidify the top half of the Jumbos' singles lineup, adding depth behind the Jumbos' bona fide one-two punch of Browne and McCooey. "[Miller] worked hard when she was abroad at staying physically fit, but it was definitely a challenge to get tennis in; so when she came back, she was already fit, which was a huge bonus, but it was a matter the first couple weeks of getting her timing back and getting her match toughness back," Bayard said. "She's still going to get stronger through the season. She's a very strong player, and she's already shown that, and she's proven herself over the last couple years. She's now at the point where she's confident in herself on the court, and it really shows." At fourth singles, Stewart was part of two three-set matches, beginning with a thriller against Colby's Tara Davidson that ended with the Mules junior taking a deciding super-tiebreaker 10-8. Stewart rebounded against Bates freshman Brooke Morse-Karzen, pulling out a 6-2 victory in the third set after dropping the second 0-6. "[Stewart] showed a great amount of composure in that second match," Bayard said. "She's been working very hard on her patience and her consistency, and it really showed in that third set [against Morse-Karzen.] She is someone who has some of the most technically sound strokes that I've seen — she has every shot. For her, it's most of the time just a matter of consistency, and she has come so far with that … That was a good confidence booster for her, to turn it around in the third set." In her first taste of NESCAC play, LaCara posted two victories at fifth singles, including a come-from-behind 5-7, 6-1, 10-6 win over Bates first-year Erika Blauth. The sixth singles spot was split between junior Laura Hoguet, who fell in a narrow three-set decision to Colby freshman Sally Meehan, and Homma, who sailed past Bates junior Jean Gulliver 6-3, 6-0. The Jumbos will have the rest of the week off before they travel to Trinity on Friday for their first road conference match of the season. The matchup with the Bantams will begin a stretch of three matches in five days, which will culminate in a highly-anticipated showdown at home against national No. 6 Amherst on April 7.
With every bad break comes a chance at redemption. This saying held true for the men's tennis team this past weekend as the Jumbos were outperformed in a 9-0 loss to nationally ranked No. 22 Bates on Friday but managed to salvage the weekend stretch with Saturday's 7-2 victory over NESCAC foe Wesleyan. The No. 30 Jumbos traveled to Middletown, Conn. Saturday to cross rackets with the Wesleyan Cardinals, a team that has been missing in action from Tufts' schedule since the 2003-04 season. Before facing Tufts, the Cardinals held a 9-4 record, their most notable achievement being single-match wins in doubles and singles play against No. 5 Williams during the fall portion of the season. Going into the match, Tufts was unsure of what to expect from the home team but was determined to notch its first NESCAC win of the year. Overall, the Jumbos secured two of three match wins in doubles and five victories in singles action, four of which were won in straight sets. After No. 1 doubles pair junior tri-captain Daniel Landers and sophomore Paul Kohnstamm won 8-4, sophomore Jake Fountain and freshman Kai Victoria followed with an 8-5 win to give Tufts the lead. Fountain was the only player to extend play into three sets, eventually winning his match in a super-tiebreaker in the No. 2 position. Junior tri-captain Jon Trott recorded the sole loss in singles matches in the No. 1 position against Wesleyan senior captain Matt O'Connell. "Going into the match, our coach told us not to underestimate Wesleyan just because we have not played them in recent years," sophomore Tony Carucci said. "We were a stronger team in doubles, taking Nos. 1 and 2, losing in No. 3 in a tight match. Wesleyan was kind of a second-tier NESCAC team. I don't think they were that great, mainly because the depth of their singles lineup didn't really extend past their top two players." "I think we played pretty solid in doubles play," junior Andrew Rosen added. "In the No. 1 position, [Landers and Kohnstamm] played a consistent game, winning 8-4. Dan made some great serves, and Paul volleyed well. [Victoria and Fountain] also played well, especially after a tough loss against Bates in doubles the day before. It's really important to win these doubles matches because it gives us an early lead and some momentum going into our singles matches." On Friday, the Jumbos faced NESCAC rival Bates with hopes of upsetting the Bobcats and rising in the national rankings. Facing a mixed recent history against Bates, losing last year 7-2 but winning 6-3 in the 2006-07 season, the Tufts squad hoped that playing at home would help the team maintain its focus and confidence on the court. After dropping all three doubles matches, however, the Jumbos couldn't build the momentum necessary to top the Bobcats. Tufts' best chance at a doubles win came in the No. 3 match, when freshman Morrie Bossen and Trott were two points away from securing victory before their Bobcats opponents rallied to take the match, 9-7. In the No. 1 match, Fountain and Victoria faced nearly insurmountable odds, taking on Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) doubles champions junior Amrit Rupasinghe and senior Ben Stein and eventually falling in the contest 8-2. "What put us at a disadvantage was losing all three of our doubles," Rosen said. "We were up against their nationally ranked doubles teams, but historically, we have beaten their Nos. 2 and 3 doubles teams and I think that because people were a little under the weather, they didn't play great in the second doubles. In the third doubles, they were a few points away from winning the third doubles match, but they weren't able to pull that out. It was also the mindset of being down 3-0 that slowed us down." Singles play was not any more promising; among the ill-fated matches was freshman Garrett Schuman's straight-set loss, the first of his collegiate career. In the No. 3 position, Rosen took his match to a super-tiebreaking third set but lost on a net cord 11-9 in the final point. "In my singles match, my opponent won in the first set, but in the second set, I made him uncomfortable, put some balls in play, made some good shots and pulled off that set," Rosen said. "In the super-tiebreaker it could've gone either way, and unfortunately, he had two let balls, one in his favor. I was down 10-9, and he hit a ball that hit the net and went over, and he won. I've never lost a match on a let court ball, when the ball hits the net and goes over. It symbolized our matches that day; things just didn't work out in our favor." At stake was not only a NESCAC win, but also the team's best chance at making the NESCAC Tournament. Locked in battles of attrition with most of its NESCAC foes, Tufts viewed the Bates match as its opportunity to beat the Bobcats and simultaneously secure a position among the top six NESCAC teams. "It's unfortunate, but to make NESCACs, beating Bates was our best chance because only the top six teams make it," Carucci said. "We're the seventh-ranked team in the conference, and to move up, it's going to require an upset over a higher-ranked NESCAC team. We're pretty competitive with all the NESCAC teams, so that will be difficult, but it's not impossible. "Bates has done a really good job over the past few years of recruiting very good players. It's just been a matter of time for their team to catch up with that. They have a lot of depth in both singles and doubles, which is rare in the NESCAC. For Tufts, we're good at winning in the [No. 4, 5 and 6] singles spots, but we dropped all of those this weekend." On Thursday, Tufts faces off against another NESCAC opponent in the No. 16 Trinity Bantams at home. The Jumbos fell to the Bantams last season 7-0, but they pulled off a close 5-4 decision two seasons ago. Finding itself in similar straits, the Tufts squad hopes that history will repeat itself next week. "We've been in this situation before, coming off of a disappointing loss and then playing Trinity at home and beating them," Landers said. "Hopefully, we can repeat history. They are a good team top to bottom; they don't really have any major weaknesses, so it'll be tough from the beginning, but that's why we play. We're up to the challenge."
You have to admire her dream and her persistence and her skills (or skill). But you can't play if you don't have the requisite physical tools, too." -- ESPN's Rob Neyer, Friday
Coming off of a disappointing spring break trip to North Carolina and Virginia, during which it dropped nine of 11 games, the baseball team returned to Medford for its opening NESCAC series this weekend, looking to sweep the visiting Bates Bobcats. Facing a young team that graduated virtually its entire starting lineup last year, the Jumbos knew they had a chance to vent their early frustrations and jumpstart their bid for a conference playoff berth.
After returning from a perfect spring break trip, the nationally ranked No. 9 softball team didn't need the California sun to keep it hot, sweeping the 2-9 Bates Bobcats in dominant fashion over the weekend by winning three shortened five-inning games. The trio of wins helped Tufts move to 15-0 on the season and stay undefeated following the trip to the Golden State.
The men's track and field team hit the outdoor oval for the first time of the 2009 season on Saturday, with the team hosting the annual Snowflake Classic.
The women's track and field team made a smooth transition to the outdoor oval, taking second place in the annual Tufts-hosted Snowflake Classic on Saturday. The Jumbos compiled 149.50 points, trailing only Div. I Boston University, which finished with 181 points. More important than the team score, however, were the impressive times put up on an unusually comfortable March afternoon.
The men's lacrosse team, already off to a sizzling start for its 2009 campaign, continued its winning ways on Saturday, defeating No. 12 Wesleyan 12-10 in a roaring comeback effort played at Bello Field.
The women's lacrosse team, ranked No. 7 in the nation, climbed off the bus in Middletown, Conn. Saturday expecting a tight game against the Wesleyan Cardinals. The Cardinals notched the first goal early on, hoping to establish the tone, but minutes later, the game was all but over as Tufts established a tone of its own.
The day I left for college, my older brother pulled me aside to have a final chat before I departed. He's a lot older than me, the only child from my dad's first marriage. When I was little, most of our conversations consisted of me trying to impress him with stories of kissing girls under the monkey bars and beating Super Mario World in unprecedented time. I idolized my older brother, Seth. So when he approached me to have the final chat before I started on my college adventure, I was expecting the Alan Arkin "f--k a lot of women" talk from "Little Miss Sunshine" (2006). That seemed like the standard advice from a 30-year-old guy who, admittedly, was planning on living the next four years vicariously through me. But instead, Sethy just said three words: "Respect crunch time."
If its performance during the indoor season is any indication, the men's track and field team is in for a nice few months.
