September 6 Behind hat tricks from forwards sophomore Tamara Brown and junior Michelle Kelly, the Jumbos open the season with a resounding 10-1 victory over Wesleyan, setting a new school record for goals in a game in the process.
Junior Tom Tassinari had already been named to the All-NESCAC football First Team for the second consecutive year, but this fall, the accolades didn't end there.
The Mid-Atlantic has long been considered the most dominant region in Div. III field hockey, and with good reason. Since the inception of the NCAA Tournament in 1981, programs like The College of New Jersey (TCNJ), which boasts a record nine championships, and Salisbury, which earned three consecutive titles between 2003 and 2005, have solidified their region's reputation.
The NBA is sometimes a predictable league. The Los Angeles Lakers will always be a part of the Christmas Day doubleheader, Stephon Marbury will always do something that makes you shake your head and big men will always be at a premium.
The PAL/Stovepipe Cup didn't end as well as it started for the ice hockey team (1-3), as the squad fell 4-3 in devastating fashion in the waning seconds of yesterday's contest against the UMass Boston Beacons in Manchester, N.H.
The women's basketball team put together a convincing 92-67 victory against Endicott on Tuesday night, bolstered by 38 percent shooting from the floor. Five days later, the result looked disappointingly dissimilar for the Jumbos as they fell victim to a Brandeis Judges team 81-76 -- a team they held to 21 percent scoring from the floor en route to a 57-43 victory last year.
It appears the men's basketball team may have awoken a sleeping giant yesterday.
The winter squads on the Hill are off to a fast start, and now, the rest of the conference has taken notice. The NESCAC awarded members of Tufts' athletics community weekly honors in men's basketball, men's swimming and diving and women's swimming and diving. A look at all of the Jumbos' award winners:
Before Saturday, a victory over NESCAC foe Middlebury had proven elusive for the 10 seniors on the women's swimming and diving team. They didn't let that fact loom over their final year for long, however, as the group, along with the rest of the squad, notched a convincing 175-123 victory over the Panthers.
The women's fencing team had its hands full at its first official competition Friday night when it traveled to Harvard for dual matches against the host Crimson and the Sacred Heart Pioneers. The Jumbos dropped both matchups, falling to nationally ranked No. 5 Harvard 22-5 and 14-13 to Sacred Heart.
After a busy weekend of five matches that went pretty much as expected, with four losses to some of the nation's elite programs and a win over a decidedly easier opponent, the men's squash team (1-4) derived some key experience for its relatively young and inexperienced lineup.
In a matter of 48 hours, the men's swimming and diving team went from having some moderate preseason confidence to boasting a perfect 3-0 record for the third time in the past four seasons.
The women's squash team knew from the get-go that its weekend games were going to be a challenge. Not only did the Jumbos have the difficult task of kicking off their season against a Trinity squad that finished last year in the number four slot nationally, but they had to do so without three key members of their team. As expected, the 2008-09 season did not begin on the best of notes, as Tufts dropped all four of its matches — albeit against four elite opponents — falling to Trinity 9-0, Dartmouth 9-0, Hamilton 8-1 and Williams 9-0. "It was a tough weekend, but we knew it was going to be tough," assistant coach Kelsey Engman said. "It was a lot of driving and we were playing A-flight teams. Trinity is usually in the top three or four teams in the country, and Dartmouth and Williams are both about equally strong. Hamilton was close last year, but [this year] we had several injuries, one girl who is abroad and actually a couple of academic excuses. We only had half of our team playing, which meant that if one girl lost then the match was over." "We went in knowing it would be hard," senior tri-captain Victoria Barba said. "But at the same time we had a really positive attitude and I could not have asked for more from my teammates. They gave it their all and I'm really proud of their effort." The Jumbos were without senior tri-captain Jessica Herrmann — who is out with a broken rib until January — as well as freshmen Mercedes Barba and Alix Michael. These injuries forced Tufts to play with a shorthanded lineup of either five or six players depending on the match. The team therefore had to concede the seven-through-nine slots, and sometimes the six-slot, leaving them with little to no margin for error. Although the squad lost to Williams 9-0 on Sunday, Barba and sophomore Valerie Koo kept the score close at the top two slots, winning 17 and 18 points, respectively. The results were similar against Dartmouth on Saturday and Trinity on Friday. Still, despite the disappointment, the weekend was not without at least one major highlight. Victoria Barba emerged victorious from her grueling five-set contest against Hamilton's No. 1 junior Kelly Whipple on Saturday to secure the team's lone individual win of the weekend. "The match was great," Barba said. "There was a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of adrenaline. I think half of what got me through the match was hearing all of the cheering outside because it made me want it more. I wanted to get one for the whole team." After winning sets one and two, Barba dropped the next two 8-10 and 1-9. But during a break in play before the final set, she found the inspiration to fight on, taking the fifth 10-8. "I came off the court after the fourth set just exhausted and completely dead," Barba said. "When I came off the court, I said to myself, ‘Are you really throwing the match away because you're tired?' But then Kelsey and Jessica reminded me to just get back to the basics. I started playing my game and took advantage." "It was a spectacular match, really amazing to watch," Engman said. "It lifted everyone's spirits. People were saying that it felt like we won the whole match because her match was so intense. We've been setting up targets in practice and competing every week to see who could hit the most. Victoria hit her spots during the match and stuck to the game plan." Despite the poor outcomes in terms of team losses this weekend, the Jumbos are confident that this weekend's results will not be representative of their season. "We're stressing, especially to our first years, that this was an atypical weekend," Engman said. "It's not like this all the time, and we just had to make the best of it." Tufts' next match will be against Amherst, a team it defeated 5-4 last December. Although Herrmann is not expected to return for the matchup with the Lord Jeffs, Michaels and Mercedes Barba should be healthy enough to compete. "Mercedes and Alix, the first-years, haven't practiced yet, so it will be interesting," Engman said. "In practice we'll continue working on hitting the ball a little bit harder so it gets to the back of the court." "I think we learned that even when we're at a disadvantage, we can still do some damage," Victoria Barba said. "As much as we knew it was going to be tough this weekend, I think we can still improve our mental state and have a more positive attitude heading into our next match. It's been close in the past with Amherst, and I think we can really take some matches this year. I predict we can get to five matches, which would get us the win."
As far as weekends go, the men's basketball team's certainly won't forget Friday and Saturday anytime soon.
As the men's cross country team's sole runner competing at NCAA Championships Saturday, junior Jesse Faller earned his second straight All-American honor in Hanover, Ind., finishing 35th overall.
Despite the field hockey team's 3-2 double-overtime loss to Bowdoin in yesterday's NCAA championship game, there is little doubt that the national stage will from now on have to make room for the Jumbos. After finishing its best-ever season at 19-2 overall, Tufts' 2008 campaign has proven that it can compete with the best -- and win.
The hockey team entered the 2007-08 season with a pair of NESCAC contests against Williams and Middlebury and emerged 1-1 with a win over the Ephs with a total of seven goals surrendered. But in a pair of contests this weekend that kicked off this season's campaign, the results were noticeably worse as the Jumbos dropped both matchups against the same opponents, Middlebury and Williams, and were outscored 13-2 across the two games.
After missing the cut for the NCAA National Championship race as a team, the women's cross country squad couldn't have asked for much more from its pair of individual representatives, sophomores Stephanie McNamara and Amy Wilfert, at this weekend's race in Hanover, Ind.
After 19 contests across 11 weeks of play, it all comes down to this: one weekend, one bracket of semifinalists and one goal -- namely, winning a national title.
