Field hockey rolls to 6-0

The Jumbos continued their stampede this past week, racking up another pair of shutout victories. The Tufts squad flew down to Virginia over the weekend to take on then-No. 9 Christopher Newport University in a fierce battle of top 10 teams, from which Tufts emerged on top by a score of 3-0. Then, back in Massachusetts, Tuesday saw the Jumbos easily handle the UMass-Dartmouth Corsairs 6-0 in another away game.

With these wins, the team moves to 6-0 on the year and 3-0 in the NESCAC, and still has yet to give up a goal while tallying 22 of its own.

The Jumbos went into Tuesday’s game having just been ranked fourth in the nation earlier that day, and the win was characteristic of their season so far. Tufts was relatively slow to get its offense going and take control of the game—a recurring theme in the first six games—but in the 24th minute sophomore forward Dominique Zarrella’s persistence in front of the net paid off as she knocked in her own rebound for the first score.

Zarrella’s counterpart in what has been a potent attack for the Jumbos this season, fellow sophomore forward Annie Artz, followed up with a goal of her own four minutes later to put her team up 2-0 going into halftime. The goal put Artz’s team-leading goal tally at six this season, while Zarrella boasts a team second-best five goals. Together, the sophomores have combined for half of the Jumbos’ 22 goals so far.

Tufts broke the game open in the second half, racking up three more goals in under seven-and-a-half minutes. Senior defender Colleen Golja capitalized on a penalty stroke to score her first goal of the season, and just over a minute later senior co-captain midfielder Brittany Norfleet knocked in her own rebound to put the visitors up by four. Consistent pressure over the next few minutes from a relentless Jumbo offense caused the Corsair defense to give up an own goal.

Sealing the win for Tufts, freshman forward Mary Kate Patton added another goal in the final minutes, her first collegiate score coming on an impressive shot. The stats reflected the Jumbos’ game-long domination: they out-shot the Corsairs 25-0 and held an 8-0 advantage in penalty corners.

“Our forwards and midfielders have been doing such a great job at taking shots, finishing and putting pressure on the other teams’ defenses,” junior midfielder Dakota Sikes-Keilp said. “It’s great that so many different people on our team have been able to find the back of the net, allowing us to have multiple offensive threats on the field.”

Last Saturday’s win against Christopher Newport held much more significance for Tufts. The Captains, ranked ninth going into the game, represented the first major challenge of the season for coach Tina McDavitt Mattera’s No. 9 Jumbos, who went in eager to validate their top 10 standing.

The Captains came out firing and tested the Jumbo defense early on, forcing senior co-captain goalkeeper Bri Keenan to block a pair of shots in the first three minutes. The two teams duked it out for the first 20 minutes, trading runs up and down the field.

But Artz came through for her team again, controlling her own rebound and flicking it in from five yards out to begin the scoring in the 20th minute. The sophomore added another before the first half ended when Norfleet took possession of the ball in front of the net and dished it to Artz, who knocked it in for a 2-0 lead.

The Captains came out of the break with renewed vigor, maintaining a sustained period of offensive pressure that saw them fire several shots on target that nearly put them on the board, including a penalty stroke that was blocked by Keenan.

Despite piecing together a series of strong offensive runs, the Captains failed to beat the Jumbo defense. Keenan had been relatively unchallenged up to that point in the season behind her solid defense, but she made nine saves Saturday—one short of her career high—in a performance that earned her NESCAC player of the week honors.

To cap off the victory, freshman midfielder Mary Travers, one of the young players who has stepped up into a starting role, took the ball into the circle at the 55-minute mark and pumped in her second goal of the season from eight yards out to cut down the hosts’ momentum.

“It was awesome [to get that goal],” Travers said. “Definitely. Something that coaches have always emphasized to me is keeping your stick down, and the first goal I scored [against Wesleyan last week] I had my stick down in front of the goal and I was able to get a rebound off someone else’s shot.”

However, it is the Jumbo defense that arguably deserves the most accolades for the win. Keenan and the back line stymied the Captains’ offensive efforts and staved off the onslaught of runs, managing to stay perfect for the season in goals allowed. Sikes-Keilp, transitioning to a more defensive role this year after being the leading scorer on the Jumbos last year, helped out her keeper with a defensive save of her own.

The only weakness in an otherwise flawless start to the season for Tufts has been that the team often takes much of the first half to settle in and execute its game plan. The Jumbos have scored only three times in the first 20 minutes of games this season despite clearly being the better team in each game.

“Especially at the beginning of the Wesleyan game, it took us a little while to really start playing our game,” Travers said. “They were hitting a lot of big balls and getting balls out of the backfield and trying to jam it up the field. At first we were trying to adjust to that, and we hadn’t really started playing our passing game and we weren’t communicating as well. We were trying to emulate what they were doing, and weren’t sticking to Tufts field hockey.”

The Jumbos will likely need to start off stronger as they face stiffer competition in the NESCAC, and their next opportunity to do that comes this Saturday at noon as they look to defend their home turf against the Amherst Lord Jeffs at Homecoming.

“Amherst is a very fast and skilled team with a lot of crafty forwards,” Sikes-Keilp said. “Lately, they have been playing some of the toughest teams in our conference, so they will come ready to compete.”