While April is the month of spring showers, we are truly blossoming into the greatest month of the professional sports calendar year: the NBA playoffs. Big names like Jayson Tatum, Nikola Jokić and, of course, Lebron James generate box office numbers for weeks on end. However, I encourage you to turn to a league which has arguably leapfrogged the NBA in two major categories.
Since this is my last edition of Extra Innings, I want to reflect on one of my favorite baseball memories, which turns 10 years old this year.
This past weekend at DiBenedetto Stadium in Hartford, Conn., was a tough but telling stretch for Tufts baseball — a clear moment of reckoning against NESCAC rival Trinity College. Having three games to make a statement, the Jumbos stumbled early but finished with a dramatic flourish, cinching a victory in the third game after dropping the first two.
Tufts women’s tennis was greeted at home by beautiful weather and a resounding victory. The team barely broke a sweat as they cruised to two 7–0 wins against Connecticut College and Endicott College in one day. The Jumbos first faced off against the Camels, a team that has not beaten Tufts since 2011.
Tufts softball took on Trinity in a doubleheader on Friday and went up against Colby at home on Saturday. On Friday morning, the Jumbos headed down to Hartford, Conn., to take on the Bantams. The first two innings saw both teams stand their ground defensively, with graduate student pitcher Sophia DiCocco ...
It was a day that the Class of 2025 had long been waiting for. Their coronation as one of the winningest classes in Tufts program history was on full display, along with their other accomplishments: a NESCAC title, three NCAA Elite Eight appearances and six All-American nods. On a picture-perfect April afternoon, it looked almost too easy for the Jumbos.
What a week for football! In the UEFA Champions League, we had intense matches and an almost remontada — not by Madrid. Arguably the most exciting game was Aston Villa versus Paris Saint-Germain . PSG had a comfortable aggregate score of 5–1 by the 27th minute, but in the span of just 10 minutes, Villa had closed the gap to 5–4. The French team managed to hold back the British side from the 57th minute in a cardiac game that left PSG fans frightened — but nonetheless victorious. Barça wasn’t particularly on form against B. Dortmund, losing 3–1 (but still beat the Germans 5–3 on aggregate).
While not yet over, the men’s tennis team has produced nothing short of a historic season, defined by intensity and domination. With a 17–1 overall record after taking down Connecticut College and Brandeis University on Saturday, Tufts remains undefeated 8–0 in the NESCAC and will face Colby and Amherst this coming weekend to battle for the top seed in the tournament.
Tufts softball took on Middlebury College and Williams College in two NESCAC double-headers last weekend. Prior to the games, the Jumbos held a 10–10 overall record and a 6–0 conference record.
Echoes of Thierry Henry’s iconic 2006 performance rung throughout the Santiago Bernabéu as Bukayo Saka deftly lifted the ball over an outstretched Thibaut Courtois. Sending the tiny pocket of Arsenal fans tucked away in the steep balconies into delirium, the English starlet had killed any hopes of a classic ‘remontada.’ Real Madrid — the competition’s most decorated club, having won six of the last 11 editions, including last year’s title — had been outclassed.
On April 7, the Los Angeles Dodgers visited the White House to celebrate their 2024 World Series title with President Donald Trump. Just over a week later, they took the field wearing No. 42 for Jackie Robinson Day, honoring the former Dodger who famously broke baseball’s color barrier. In the span of eight days, the same team posed with a president who has championed policies that undermine diversity, equity and inclusion and then celebrated the life’s work of a man who embodied them.
It was yet another exciting season around the National Hockey League — a season full of milestones, surprises and, yes, disappointments. From Alex Ovechkin scoring his 895th career goal to pass Wayne Gretzky for the all-time goals record to Connor McDavid reaching 1,000 career points to the fascinating 4 Nations Face-Off tournament that captured the attention of the entire sports world, the 2024–25 NHL season was certainly one to remember.
I’m genuinely torn on Major League Baseball’s future. On one hand, baseball is a revived product with high-scoring games, intense extra-inning battles and engaging pitching personalities that finish off the most intense matchups. I made the trip to Fenway Park on April 10, where I witnessed a feisty Boston Red Sox team close out a win in their four-game series versus the Toronto Blue Jays. While I only witnessed the final six innings, due to the brutal Thursday 4 p.m. start time, I certainly caught the majority of the relevant action, as the teams brought a 2–2 game to extra innings, featuring heavy hitters such as Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and pitching talent like Aroldis Chapman.
Every free-agent cycle, there always seems to be the same free-agent quarterbacks on the market. Quarterbacks who just can’t seem to hold on to their jobs at their subpar organizations and end up like a seed in a hurricane, passed from one city to another. These so-called journeyman quarterbacks are about as ubiquitous as the attention-dominating superstar quarterbacks, yet they don’t share the same spotlight.
The Tufts Jumbos men’s lacrosse team extended their perfect season and continued their dominance in the NESCAC with a 16–11 win over No. 16 Middlebury. On a dreary Saturday afternoon in Medford, the No. 1 ranked Jumbos capped off a spirited Senior Day, dismantling Middlebury early and picking apart their transition defense while overpowering the Panthers with feeds to the crease. After nearly seven minutes of scoreless play to start the game, junior attacker Jack Regnery eventually broke the ice with a streaking upper left corner strike.
This past Saturday, the most anticipated matchup in Division III women’s lacrosse took place in Middlebury, Vt. as the then undefeated No. 2 Tufts traveled to take on the No. 1 Middlebury College. Winning the last three NCAA titles, Middlebury is the only obstacle standing in the way of Tufts dominating the division with an undefeated record this season and now 64-game win streak. The last time that the Middlebury team lost was May 8, 2022 against Tufts in the NESCAC Championship.
The International Olympic Committee just released the event program for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, and it’s official: there will be a mixed event in artistic gymnastics! Gymnastics is following in the footsteps of other core Olympic events like swimming and figure skating, adding a medal event where men and women compete together. The specifics haven’t been shared yet, but what’s known is that it won’t expand the quota — the event will include athletes already in the Games.
Last week’s UCL quarter-final first-legs were full of surprises. Arsenal stunned Real Madrid 3–0 at home, with two incredible free-kick goals from Declan Rice (more on him later). Paris Saint-Germain beat Aston Villa 3–1 in Paris, whileInter Milan edged Bayern Munich with an 88th-minute winner from Frattesi. Barcelona smashed Dortmund 4–0, and even with the second leg at Signal Iduna Park, a comeback was unlikely. Even though Dortmund triumphed 3–1 on Wednesday, Barcelona still progressed.
Last Tuesday, the Denver Nuggets informed their championship coach Mike Malone and general manager Calvin Booth that they were both fired. Let me repeat that again, the Nuggets gutted the two most important decision-makers in their organization — the week before the playoffs. What is going on in Denver?
Being No. 1 means having a lot to defend every game, and men’s lacrosse pulled through with one of their closest wins yet. Tufts beat No. 7 Wesleyan 20–19 in a road win in overtime.
