Early goal pushes women's soccer past Brandeis

The women's soccer team improved to 6-2 after squeezing out a 1-0 victory Tuesday afternoon at non-conference Brandeis. The Jumbos took an early lead on senior co-captain Alle Sharlip's first goal of the year and managed to hold off the Judges despite a mediocre performance.

"We played a pretty nasty game," Sharlip said. "But I feel like we always do that against Brandeis. We play these horrible games against them, we always just squeak out a win. But we're going to have to move on from this, forget it ever happened, and never, ever, ever play like that ever again."

Sharlip scored the lone goal of the game in the ninth minute, when Brandeis goalkeeper Mari Levine deflected a shot by junior forward Jess Trombly but could not hold onto the ball. It bounced out in front of the net, where sophomore Sarah Gelb took possession of the rebound, slipped it to Sharlip, who lifted a shot up and over the keeper for the score.

Unfortunately, Tufts could not build any real momentum from the goal. The Jumbos failed to finish the chances they had, and could not control the ball as well as they have in other games.

"We scored, and everyone was like, 'ok, we're just going to keep scoring now.' But that didn't happen," Sharlip said. "We had a lot of chances, but we just didn't do anything with them."

Brandeis, on the other hand, stepped up its intensity, making strong pushes that led to a number of close calls. The Tufts defense did its job of keeping the Judges out of the net, but afterwards, the Jumbos often were unable to move the ball up and get the offense going.

The story remained the same through the start of the second half, as control of the game fluctuated back and forth. It looked as though the Judges might even the score with 25 minutes to play, when a shot from Brandeis freshman Rachel Koffman hit hard off the crossbar and deflected down toward Jumbo goalkeeper Meg McCourt. The ball bounced off her and rolled towards the net, but she fell on it to make the save just before it crossed the goal line.

"They had a couple of dangerous chances," coach Martha Whiting said. "I have to give them credit for playing hard all the time and playing tough. All it was going to take was one goal to tie it up, and then it's a completely different game."

Tufts finally picked up the pace shortly after and, over the final 20 minutes, Brandeis rarely got the ball back across midfield.

"We started to play better," Whiting said. "We played well when we kept the ball on the ground and played it quickly. But 20 minutes to go is too late to start doing that."

The Jumbos looked much stronger through that final stretch, maintaining a steady attack and putting together a number of solid scoring chances. And it appeared as though they would even add to their lead in the 70th minute, when a Brandeis foul gave the Jumbos a free kick from about 35 yards out.

After a shot into the box, sophomore Jen Baldwin redirected the ball past backup goalie Natasha Pieciak and into the net. But the referee ruled that a Tufts player had been offsides, negating the goal.

"I don't usually dispute calls, but that one for sure seemed questionable," Whiting said. "It was an offsides call. I don't really know who was offsides. I felt like it should have been a goal."

Despite losing out on the insurance goal, the Jumbos were able to hold on, keeping up the pressure over the final minutes to secure their fourth consecutive win.

"We're on a roll," Whiting said. "In spite of the fact that we didn't play so well, we still know that we're a good team. We just had a little lapse today."

Even though they came away with the victory, the Jumbos were disappointed with their play against a team they all felt was not up to their level. Coming off a huge win Saturday against a tough Bowdoin squad, Tufts seemed much less motivated on Tuesday, as it played down against a weaker opponent.

"It was a bit frustrating," sophomore Becky Greenstein said. "It happens a lot, when there's a team that you're so much better than, you sometimes play down to them. We came out with a win, and I guess that's the important thing, but we have to learn how to play better against the lower teams."

"There was a drop in our intensity level, which can happen after a really big win," Whiting added. "We came out flat, and were never really able to rebound from that. We really stayed flat for the entire game until the last 20 minutes."

The Jumbos look to build off those last 20 minutes as they head toward this weekend's conference match-up at Trinity. The Bantams are currently tied for fifth in the NESCAC, at 2-2-1, and have a 4-3-1 overall record.

Tufts currently sits a number two in the conference, at 3-1, half a game behind Williams (4-1). The Jumbos will need a good game against Trinity to keep pace with the always-tough Ephs, who will play host to Middlebury this weekend.

"Every team in our league is a team we can beat, but every team can also beat us," Sharlip said. "So every league game is big, and Trinity is usually pretty good. Every game from here on out is really big for us. We're at the top right now, and we need to stay that way."