The 2014 season saw Tufts baseball tie a school record for victories with a 34-9 final record and earn a fifth NCAA Div. III berth. The Jumbos also pushed eventual NESCAC Champions Wesleyan to the final game of the conference Championship, emerging as the runners-up.After a disappointing 2013 season ...
The Jumbos are back to a winning conference record after a 1-0 victory on the road against the Continentals on Saturday. Freshman Brooke Fortin netted the goal for the Jumbos in the second half to give the team their fifth NESCAC win of the season.
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.
A late-game corner kick sealed the deal for Tufts as the women's soccer team walked away with a 2-0 win over Connecticut College on Saturday. Junior Carla Kruyff netted both goals for Tufts in a game that brought the team back to a winning record in the conference.
Tufts Water Polo club finished on top of the North Atlantic division, improving on their third place division finish last year, and will finish their season in the upcoming National Championships this weekend.
The co-ed and women's sailing teams competed in five different regattas this past weekend. Seven Tufts sailors participated at the main co-ed event, the 73rd Annual Professor Schell Trophy at MIT, while six others raced at the women's event, the Victorian Coffee Urn at Harvard. Nine sailors were at the secondary co-ed event, the Dave Perry Trophy at Yale, and 18 freshmen sailors stayed in Medford for the Nickerson Trophy, hosted by Tufts. Finally, the third co-ed event, the Providence College Invite #2, featured four Jumbo sailors.
The Tufts Student Athletic Advisory Committee (SAAC) hosted a talk on Nov. 5 led by former Washington Wizards interim head coach and long-time NBA executive Ed Tapscott (LA '75). The talk, which was moderated by sophomore women's soccer player Allie Weiller, is one of the first steps that SAAC has taken in advancing its organizational goals.Originally, a few years ago, when [SAAC] was really starting to pick up, [the goal] was simply to bring fans to sporting events, which Tufts kind of had an issue doing," Weiller said. "I think now, with Fan The Fire, that is not an issue anymore, and it's more of a routine. I think the next biggest thing we're working on is bringing athletes and non-athletes together." According to Weiller, talks led by individuals like Tapscott will be vital because they appeal to a wide range of students and can serve to bridge the gap between athletes and non-athletes. "Since we are branching out past Fan the Fire this year, I thought the best way of doing that was bringing in someone that could talk to the Tufts community about how their experiences helped them get to such a vibrant and amazing career that they have today," Weiller said. For Weiller and SAAC, Tapscott was an obvious choice. Life at TuftsTapscott, who graduated from Tufts with a degree in political science and a job coaching the Tufts freshman basketball team, believes his time at Tufts was extremely influential to his life - one of the reasons he agreed to speak at the university last week."I really believe that my athletic experience, as well as my academic experience [at Tufts], has really shaped who I became," Tapscott said. "I think that my experience here was certainly part of what helped launch me to things I ended up wanting to do and was able to do."One of the values Tapscott took out of his time at Tufts - and stressed during his talk - was leading a balanced lifestyle."I work in an athletic environment, and I see guys who have certainly emphasized their athletic development throughout their lives," he said. "As a result of that ... they have turned that into lucrative professional careers. However, the one thing they can't stop is aging, and at some point, the muscles that you use in your body will stiffen and slow, but the one muscle you can continue to develop is the brain. I left [Tufts] with a fairly good appreciation of how to use both."Tapscott, however, was not all brains and no brawn. During his Tufts athletic career, he was a captain of the basketball team for his junior and senior seasons and ended up eighth all time on the career assists list for the school. Tapscott used the unique atmosphere that Tufts provided to propel himself through life, and eventually, into a job in the NBA. From athlete to coach, and everything in betweenDespite his impressive post-graduate professional resume in athletics, Tapscott originally came to Tufts with the intention of becoming a lawyer. He went on to graduate from American University with a Juris Doctorate in 1980 and only began to get truly involved in athletics when he was promoted to head coach of American's men's basketball team in 1982. Tapscott finally left Washington, D.C. after eight successful seasons, leaving behind a legacy as the coach with the second highest winning percentage in school history. However, Tapscott, who preached the value of competitiveness during his talk, did not end his professional climb at American."I really tried to diversify my portfolio," he said. "I didn't want to be stuck doing one thing. When I left college coaching, before I even went into the NBA, I was an attorney agent. All of a sudden, I was out of coaching and in the business contract side of it. Then when I joined the Knicks, I was in the administrative side of things."Tapscott continued to build his resume, working in television and then for several pro teams in different capacities, before he got his big break with the Charlotte Bobcats. "I never seemed to specialize in any one thing," he said. "I was a jack of all trades, and that seemed to serve me extremely well."Tapscott was rewarded for his hard work when he was the first employee hired to run the Charlotte Bobcats as the executive vice president and chief operating officer. After he left the Bobcats, he joined the Wizards in an administrative role and was named the team's interim head coach in 2008. Tapscott explained that although he had experience coaching in college, the transition to the NBA required a different type of thinking."Coaching in college is an exercise in authority, and coaching in the NBA is an exercise in creativity," he said. "You have to create things that focus interest and attention, and do so in a manner that [the players] will embrace. It makes it interestingly challenging."Tapscott, who returned to the front office of the Wizards after the year, believes that his roles as both coach and administrator naturally play off of each other."Coaching and administration [have] so many parallels," he said. "It's about managing egos
For the Tufts rugby teams, it has been a season of contrasts. The women's team is undefeated for the first time in 11 years through five matches and is on its way to a conference championship match. On the other hand, the men's team sits at the bottom of the New England Collegiate Rugby Conference's standings at 1-4, facing a must-win match this Saturday against the Coast Guard to keep its playoff dreams alive. With one regular season match remaining for each team, the rugby program is once again showing that it is home to more than typical club teams.
Although many Div. III tennis teams across the country have already completed several matches to kick off the spring season, Tufts men's tennis will begin over spring break at Claremont Colleges in Claremont, Calif., where they will take on Denison, Sewanee, Pomona, Occidental and Trinity. It will be a quick jump into team play, especially compared to the more singles-oriented fall season the team had last semester.
After a long cross-country trip, a small contingent from the men's track and field team arrived in Lincoln, Neb. on March 13 to compete in the Div. III National Championships. The next day - Friday, March 14 - marked the first of two days of competition, which saw the Jumbos get out to a fast and successful start.
The men's hockey team returned to the ice this past week, hoping to ignore last year's 2-14-2 conference record. Despite improving in all facets of the game and boasting a much deeper lineup, Tufts dropped its first two contests of the year to Wesleyan and Trinity, once again putting the team in an uphill battle in the NESCAC.Still, the Jumbos are optimistic that its 2013-14 season will be different than the previous one. Tufts lost its team leader in points from the 2012-13 season, Dylan Plimmer (LA '13), but the Jumbos returned all but three players and maintained the backbone of a team that struggled late in games. Co-captains senior Cody Armstrong and junior Blake Edwards step in as the team's leaders, and if the preseason was any indication, they have taken aim at some fundamental problems.Most of the change this preseason has been a culture change on top of the hard work," sophomore forward James Randaccio said. "We built in some new preseason and summer workouts and revamped our preseason workouts to make sure everything was up to gear this year."At the forward position, the Jumbos are deep, mixing in freshmen with a solid core of veterans. Freshmen Matt Pugh and Conal Lynch play center for the first and second lines, respectively, a move that coach Brian Murphy hopes will spark some goal-scoring opportunities for a team that finished seventh in the NESCAC in scoring offense last year. Pugh is joined by sophomore Stewart Bell and junior Andrew White, the team's second and fourth top scorers from last year's campaign, respectively, while Lynch is surrounded by a pair of veterans in junior Tyler Voigt and senior Kyle Gallegos.Through the first two games, however, the third line has been the strongest unit. Sophomores Luke Griffin and Keith Campbell have quickly developed chemistry with junior George Pantazopoulos, who is the team's leading goal-scorer after netting a goal in each of the first two games. The fourth line has also proven to be a perfect grind-it-out unit that combines hard-nosed play with a cohesive offensive approach. Randaccio and senior forward Tim Mitropoulous complement each other in size and style, while a rotating duo of freshmen Mike Leary and Patrick Lackey, two physical young forwards, will take turns on the wing."We have three great forward lines and a fourth line that really shows our depth," senior defenseman Brandon Fruchter said of his teammates. "That is what makes us a really strong team this year."Fruchter is one of the Jumbos' six defensemen who are looking to turn around last year's unit, which allowed the most goals in the NESCAC. He is paired with sophomore Aidan Hartigan, and together they are perhaps the two most traditional defensemen on the team. The duo of junior Shawn Power and freshman Sean Kavanagh, two of the team's biggest skaters, gives the team much-needed size and physicality. The most impressive defensive pairing so far, however, has been junior Blake Edwards and sophomore Brian Ouellette, who have shown the chemistry and puck-handling prowess to be two of the best offensive defensemen in the NESCAC. While all six defensemen are as skilled as their counterparts throughout the conference, the success of the defense will depend on more than just individual players."Our top six has done really well in practice," Randaccio said. "We have the tools
Tufts lost at Bates on Saturday. The streak extended to 25 games. A loss is a loss.
Despite getting out to an early lead, the Jumbos fell to the Middlebury Panthers during Parents Weekend on a goal scored off a corner kick in the last two minutes of the game. For the Jumbos, it was a heartbreaking loss, filled with missed opportunities in the second half to put the game away.
Maybe, in an alternate universe, Jack Doll threw the ball away on 1st-and-goal. Maybe the junior held onto it and went down near the line of scrimmage. Maybe, just maybe, he evaded the pass rush, found an open man and ended the longest losing streak in college football.Any of those scenarios would make more sense than what really happened Saturday at Zimman Field. Down 13-10 with under a minute remaining, Tufts was on Bowdoin's 2-yard line. Doll floated a pass toward the goal line, intended for classmate Greg Lanzillo. The pass was intercepted. Bowdoin senior Tim Wickstrom caught the ball and put a dagger through the Jumbos' hearts. Over the last 26 games, Tufts football has experienced its share of anguish, including 10 losses by eight points or fewer. And yet, as they marched down the field in the final minutes on Saturday, the Jumbos had 1,200 fans convinced. After three years of frustration, they were finally going to exorcise their demons. Then Wickstrom came down with the ball and the Polar Bears took a knee to run out the clock: Bowdoin 13, Tufts 10. That's the reality the Jumbos must live with.What should have happened is we should have won the game," head coach Jay Civetti said Sunday. "We should have made the play."On the previous possession, Tufts' defense had bent but did not break. Civetti used all three of his timeouts, leaving 2:37 to go when the Jumbos took over on downs at their own 29. From there, they marched to the goal line."Jack [Doll] did his job," Civetti said. "Jack's supposed to complete the passes and get us into a position to score. He did his job in terms of getting us there. ... We just didn't finish."The game was a defensive battle from the start. Tufts pulled ahead, 3-0, in the second quarter when freshman Willie Holmquist converted his first career field goal, a 30-yarder. But Bowdoin scored the next 13 points. First, sophomore Andrew Murowchick hit a 30-yard field goal. Then, the Polar Bears drove 73 yards and scored a touchdown with 13 seconds left in the opening half. Senior Zach Donnarumma, who rushed 29 times for 136 yards, capped it with a 1-yard run. Later, in the third quarter, Murowchick hit from 29 yards to make the score 13-3.The Polar Bears got away with some sloppy play, including seven penalties for 53 yards, five fumbles - three on bad snaps and one on a dropped punt - and an interception. But for much of the game, the Jumbos failed to take advantage. "Our identity needs to be more consistently there," Civetti said. "That's probably the best way I could say it. We can't just wake up when the game's on the line."After three straight drives of seven yards or fewer to close out the third quarter, Tufts' offense finally began to click early in the fourth. Starting at his team's own 31, Doll engineered a 69-yard touchdown drive, highlighted by a 30-yard strike under pressure to freshman Mike Rando at Bowdoin's 6-yard line. On 4th-and-goal inside the 1, Doll handed off to freshman Chance Brady, who slipped through the line for his first collegiate touchdown. Holmquist's extra point made it 13-10 with 11:35 left.Bowdoin and Tufts traded fruitless possessions before the Polar Bears got the ball at their own 20 with eight minutes to play. That's when Donnarumma, sophomore running back Trey Brown and junior quarterback Mac Caputi went to work. They picked up four first downs, eating up five minutes in the process. At the 2:53 mark, the Jumbos took down Brown in the backfield at the Tufts 30, at which point Civetti called his first timeout. Then, junior James Brao sacked Caputi for a loss of five, and Civetti stopped the clock again. On 3rd-and-16, Donnarumma picked up six yards
The defending national champions and sixth-ranked field hockey team did not recapture the fairytale ending it had hoped for Saturday, falling to No. 3 Salisbury University 1-0 on a heart-wrenching final-minute goal. For the Jumbos, the loss marked the end of the season, and for four seniors, the end of their careers.Meanwhile, the host Seagulls advanced to the round of eight, which pitted them against Wellesley College on Sunday afternoon. Ironically, Salisbury moved on to play the same Wellesley team that the Jumbos defeated 1-0 on the road earlier in the season.The game was cagey from the beginning. In the opening minutes, the Jumbos and Seagulls traded possessions at midfield until Salisbury finally worked the ball into its offensive zone and began to pressure Tufts' defenders.Junior netminder Bri Keenan was forced to make several close saves for the Jumbos, including a few over her head as Seagulls forwards tried to aerial the ball into the cage.By the end of the first half, Salisbury built a 12 to five advantage in shots and had also worked to earn five penalty corners.But shortly before halftime, Tufts' offensive unit began to put the pieces together, eventually earning three penalty corners of its own.The Jumbos' best chances to score came in that period of the game, as the Tufts offense fired five shots at junior Rachel Clewer in the last 10 minutes of the half. Senior All-American midfielder Emily Cannon and sophomore midfielder Dakota Sikes-Keilp each took aim on goal but could not find a hole in the Salisbury defense.Picking up where they left off, the Jumbos came out of the intermission full of fire. Tufts hustled to push the ball upfield, but still found no answer for Clewer and her defense. At the other end, the Seagulls' trio of first-year forward Yumi Kim, junior forward Mallory Elliot and sophomore Courtney Jantzen kept Jumbo defenders Colleen Golja and Alexandra Jamison on their toes.The minutes continued to fly by and still no team managed to find the back of the boards. As the final 10 minutes closed out, it appeared that the Jumbos and Seagulls might be forced to settle the score in overtime, or even penalty strokes.With less than two minutes remaining, however, the Jumbos worked the ball into the 16-meter circle and earned a penalty corner. Cannon got a touch on the ball and attempted to slide it past Clewer, but the Seagulls' defenders were there to block her path. As most of Tufts' players pressed up, hoping to notch a quick goal and avoid overtime, Salisbury collected the ball and broke through Tufts' ranks. In seconds, Jantzen brought the ball downfield and into the right wing before connecting with junior midfielder Summer Washburn on a cross.Jantzen's pass slipped through the last lines of Tufts' defense and into Washburn's hands as she waited by the near post. The midfielder then beat Keenan, who had played cool under pressure all afternoon, but could do nothing to stop the quick one-on-one putaway.The Seagulls had pulled ahead with just 32 seconds remaining in the contest. With a half a minute left to play, the Jumbos already knew their fate was sealed, but nevertheless tried one more time to push the ball into the 16-meter circle. Instead, Cannon's long-ball drifted out of bounds and time expired on Tufts' season, as the desperation finally sunk in.Although the season didn't end how we wanted, I am extremely proud of the team and what we accomplished this year," co-captain Steph Wan said. "This team was an incredibly talented group of girls who worked hard to improve every single day."For three of the team's seniors, co-captains Chelsea Yogerst and Wan, as well as midfielder Katy McConnell, the game marked the last time they would lace up to play collegiate field hockey. For Cannon, the end of her career comes this weekend, after she plays in the All-Star game located at the same Virginia Beach site that will host the final rounds of the NCAA tournament. The opportunity, although an honor, is bittersweet."We played so hard against Salisbury and I couldn't have asked for a more awesome or harder working team to spend my last season with," Cannon said. "These last four years have been unforgettable
Both the men's and women's crew teams participated in races over the weekend against Middlebury and Worchester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). Both teams lost to Middlebury, and the men's team fell just short against WPI. But the women's team stepped up, reclaiming the Bernard Brown Cup after a three-year drought.The women's crew first varsity eight edged WPI by a length to regain the Cup. The team finished with a time of 6:59.88 compared to WPI's time of 7:04.31. Although the Bernard Brown Cup is a contest between just Tufts and WPI, five other teams competed in the varsity eight race, which William Smith won with a 6:55.20 finish. Tufts finished second ahead of WPI, Clark and Skidmore. In the women's second varsity eight, Tufts was third with a 7:25.5 time behind William Smith (7:11.6) and WPI (7:22.5). WPI also edged Tufts in the women's third varsity eight race, 7:38.47 to 7:41.19. In the women's novice eight, Tufts (8:21.81) was third of four teams, behind William Smith (7:33.72) and Skidmore (7:58.27), but ahead of Clark (9:22.26).A big factor in the women's team success this season has been thanks to its trainer and lifting coach, Mike Pimentel who has made great strides with the team both in and out of the water. Mike [Pimentel] has really been a positive role model in our life
The Jumbos continued to roll on Tuesday evening, defeating visiting UMass Dartmouth 5-1 for their second non-conference victory and fifth victory overall. The win marked another dominant performance for the Jumbos, who have controlled possession and pace of play in every game this season.
On May 10 at the New England Intercollegiate Amateur Athletic Association Championships (NEICAA), graduating senior Jana Hieber ran one of the most jaw-dropping races in Div. III history. Hieber, who had never broken the 60-second barrier in the 400-meter hurdles, smashed that mark by running a time of 58.58 seconds to outpace the field by almost three seconds. She first broke the 60-second barrier in the preliminaries, running 59.86 to advance to the final. Hieber's mark is now the second fastest time in NCAA Div. III history for the event. The all-time mark was set this season by Wheaton College graduating senior Ashante Little, who ran just 0.02 seconds faster than Hieber at the New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference Championships on April 26. Both marks are significantly faster than the previous Div. III record in the 400-meter hurdles, held by Augsburg's Carolyn Ross, who set the standard at 58.99 seconds at the 1989 NCAA National Championships. "I really just went after it this weekend," Hieber said. "I have been working on the first half of my race lately so getting out faster in the first half was really key this weekend. It seemed to work." Rising junior Audrey Gould also had an impressive day on the track in the 5,000-meter. Gould was the runner-up in a very fast race, which brought her a personal record and a 17:09.07 finish. Gould's time currently ranks 23rd in the nation, making her dreams of competing at the national championships a strong possibility. Gould was second only to Williams graduating senior Kaleigh Kenny, who won in 16:55.19. Graduating senior Abby Barker placed 13th overall in a time of 17:44.82, while graduating senior Lauren Creath placed 24th, running a time of 18:26.08. Both times were season bests. "I think being in a faster field really helped." Gould said. "I had girls that went out at exactly the pace I wanted to run and was able to hang on them and pick them off towards the end." In the 100-meter hurdles, rising junior Alexis Harrison took 13th overall, running a time of 12.45, while graduating senior tri-captain Anya Kaufmann finished in 12.52, which was good enough for 17th overall. Rising junior Marilyn Allen ran a strong 100-meter hurdles race with a time of 14.88, but that only earned her ninth place out of the preliminaries meaning she was unable to advance to the final. The 4x400-meter relay team of rising senior Lauren Gormer, Allen, rising sophomore Hannah Loss and Hieber ran a time of 3:55.25 for 11th overall another season best for Tufts. The Jumbos still have two meets left on the season. A few Jumbos may run in the Eastern College Athletic Championships , held May 15-16 at Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. However, in past years, most Tufts runners have skipped this meet to prepare for the Div. III National Championships, which will be held this year at Ohio Wesleyan University. Currently, only a few Jumbos rank in the top 25 in their events. The top 17 in each event qualify for the championships, but with scratches, it's possible that those athletes just outside of the top 17 could also compete. Hieber has the best shot out of any Tufts athlete to win a national title. She and Little currently outpace the field by almost two seconds, so the battle for the 400-meter hurdles crown will likely be between them, with the winner likely being decided by fractions of a second. "I have run fast times without close competition," Hieber said. "I definitely think that running with competition will motivate me and hopefully propel me to an even faster time." Hieber also ranks 21st overall in the 400-meter as of May 12, though even if she does make the event after scratches, she may choose to focus solely on the 400-meter hurdles. "I'll be running the 400 at ECACs, so we'll make a decision what to run at nationals afterward," Hieber said. "Obviously I'd love to compete in multiple events in Ohio, but we'll see how things shake out after this weekend." Gould is perhaps the next most likely candidate to run at Nationals. She is currently ranked 23rd in the nation in the 5,000-meter. Most of the women in the field have broken 17 minutes, which Gould has never done. If she makes the national championships, Gould will be able to take advantage of the momentum she has built coming into nationals, and can count on running a fast race against women of her caliber. In addition to placing second at NEICAAs, she won at NESCACs on April 26 by running a time of 17:30.26. The 4x100-meter relay team of rising senior Christina Harvey, Kaufmann, Allen and Harrison also have an outside shot of making Nationals with their race in Div. III New Englands a few weeks back. After Nationals, the team will lose stars such as Hieber, Kaufmann, Barker and Creath to graduation, but as the past few years have shown, the Jumbos have done a remarkable job filling such voids. With a tradition of strong leadership and excellence, the Jumbos look to step up next year and stay at the top of the NESCAC. "Summer training is going to be crucial for our team this year," Gould said. "Obviously we have a ton of talent in the freshman class that just needs some fine tuning. I think we can surprise people next year if people do things right over the summer."
