As the women's soccer team earned a well-deserved 1-0 victory over Wesleyan on Saturday, they had the support of an exceptionally large crowd as a result of the inaugural Fan the Fire event, which proved to be an unquestionable success.
Until Saturday, everything seemed to be going right for the men's soccer team.
ere's a little Zach Drucker history lesson for you: I was born on July 11, 1990, the first child and only son of Mara and Jon. As the first-born son, I was granted passage into the world of sports fandom by my father, starting with a rattling Jets football, a beaten-up Knicks cap and a Mets teddy bear cluttering my crib. My manhood was judged, not on how I performed in youth basketball leagues, USTA tennis tournaments or travel baseball games — after all, I'm an awkward, white, Jewish kid from New York suburbia, who never quite lived up to his "professional athlete" hype — but in how much I knew about Patrick Ewing's wingspan and Mike Piazza's stat line from the previous night. My dad weaned me on the Knicks, Mets and Jets, and my mom simply made sure I distinguished between being a fan and a fanatic.
On paper, the Tufts women's soccer team's match against Wesleyan looks just like any other the team will play this year: nothing more than an early-season game against a familiar middle-of-the-pack NESCAC foe.
After one of the program's youngest and deepest years, the men's cross country team looks to pick up where it left off last fall, this time with a more experienced squad and a drive to best its eighth−place Regional finish.
Last season was a historic one for the women's tennis team, as the Jumbos successfully climbed from a national No. 9 ranking at the start of the season up to a program−best No. 5, and then reached the national quarterfinals for the first time in school history. It might come as a surprise, then, that after such an exciting season, the Jumbos are starting off the fall on a worrisome note.
After a summer of intense training, the women's cross country team looks to take advantage of its fitness and improve on its eighth−place finish at the Div. III New England Regional Championships. Even with the graduation of All−American Amy Wilfert (LA '11), the team comes into the year with valuable experience and a core group of talented sophomores and juniors itching to prove themselves on the national level.
After a groundbreaking 2010-11 campaign, in which the men's tennis team won its most matches in 15 years and reached the NESCAC Championships for the first time since the tournament went to a six-team format in 2006, the Jumbos' program appears to be on the rise. With a deep roster that returns almost all of last year's starters, the squad is set to begin its fall season under the direction of new head coach Jaime Kenney.
Though the No. 8 field hockey team took a two-spot skid in the national rankings after Saturday's loss to then-No. 10 Middlebury, it didn't play like a team down on itself in a 5-0 rout of Babson on Tuesday.
Defensive coordinator Scott Rynne makes no excuses for the way his unit performed last season, when the football team lost its final seven games after a season-opening win at home against Hamilton.
During the NFL's Kickoff Weekend, no team made a louder statement than the Baltimore Ravens. By decimating the Pittsburgh Steelers, 35-7 on Sunday, the Ravens served notice to the rest of the league that they have big plans for this season, and even bigger hits in store to make them come to fruition.
The football team's defense really enjoys inserting its practice-jersey color into nonsensical phrases. Blue kids on the block. Blue cross, blue shield. Everything usually ends with "baby," so "Blue zone, baby; it'll leave you feeling sick" is also popular.
Going into the Brandeis Invitational, the volleyball team was filled with unanswered questions, most notably about the performance of eight first-years, who make up more than half the roster. But by the time Saturday was over, the Jumbos had shrugged off the doubts emphatically, sweeping the weekend's three-game slate with victories over Emmanuel, Rhode Island College (RIC) and Haverford.
A year ago, it seemed that late deficits always spelled doom for the men's soccer team, which created plenty of opportunities — only for them to watch them slip away. The Jumbos came into Saturday's season opener looking to shed that label, and they did.
In a rematch of last year's 3-0 rout of Middlebury, the women's soccer team fought key injuries and two Panthers equalizers in order to preserve a 2-2 draw in the Jumbos' season- and conference-opener at Kraft Field.
Two things were not lacking in Saturday's NESCAC field hockey battle between the No. 6 Jumbos and No. 10 Middlebury Panthers: talent and drama.
The race to replace Anthony Fucillo (LA '11) has begun, and it's neck-and-neck between two Johns.
Tufts' defense was awfully good in 2010.
After finishing outside the top four in the NESCAC for nine consecutive seasons, the men's soccer team finally believes that it is ready to not only compete with but also beat the conference's top squads.
