Coming off Wednesday's shocking 4-3 loss to Salve Regina, the Men's soccer team will enter tomorrow's match against league rival Amherst looking to conquer its psychological pitfalls.
"[Our losses] have been more mental than anything else," injured junior tri-captain Jon Glass said. "We're still a very young team and skill can only bring you so far. We get satisfied after we score and tend to ease up on the gaps. We have to keep the intensity up."
For a Jumbo team whose fluctuating lineups consist of more than half underclassmen most games, the recent trend has been to come out strong in the opening minutes, only to relinquish late game goals. Tufts was either tied or ahead of its opponent midway through the second half in each of this season's three losses.
"We have shown flashes of greatness in the first half of every game we've played," Glass said. "For some reason, when the second half starts, all hell just breaks loose."
Tufts has given up all ten goals scored by its opponents this season after the 52nd minute of play. While they have yet to surrender a first half goal, the Jumbos have failed to produce early goals themselves. Of their six goals so far this fall, just two have come before the halftime whistle.
The Jumbos need to align the strong offense they tend to bring to the field in the later minutes with the solid defense they play early in the game. Glass said he believes this synergy will come with experience as this young group gels as a unit and conquers its concentration demons late in the game.
"It's still early in the season. If you always have that doubt that you could give it up [in the later minutes] because you have before, you're not going to win," Glass said
Tufts has been examining tapes of Wednesday's Salve Regina game over the past two days to see which of coach Ralph Ferrigno's strategies were successful. The coach was forced to adjust his lineup, especially in the back, due to Glass' high ankle sprain against Middlebury last Saturday and various other early-season injuries.
With just two days of practice before the Amherst game, Tufts will try to regroup.
"In the first half of the Salve game, coach tried a lot of experiments in the back," Glass said. "We [looked] at the film and realized what worked and what didn't. We'll put it all together this week and have it ready for tomorrow. It's going to take a lot of reflecting; the second half [on Wednesday] was a complete embarrassment."
Tufts will face a 3-0-1 Amherst squad tomorrow on Kraft Field. The Lord Jeffs triumphed over the Jumbos last year 2-0.
A strong Amherst defense led the way against the Jumbos in that game, allowing the Lord Jeffs to outshoot Tufts 14-7. Senior co-captains Ben Lavely and Ian Lovett, along with sophomore midfielder and current scoring leader Taylor Downs, could cause problems for Tufts.
Amherst has won three of the last four games between the two teams. The Jeffs finished just ahead of Tufts in the NESCAC last season with a 5-4 league record.
The prospects for Jumbos success tomorrow will hinge upon two main factors: whether the young strikers can match the midfielders in scoring production and if the offense and defense can work more tightly as a unit for the entire 90 minutes without allowing the mental breakdowns that have plagued the Jumbos so far this year at home.
The action begins tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. on Kraft Field.
