With Saturday's win over Trinity, the women's soccer team etched its place in the Tufts record books.
The ninth straight win kept the team's home record untarnished at 6-0. After an opening day loss on the road to Colby, the Jumbos have been unstoppable, outscoring opponents 23-7 and recording four shutouts in the process.
"It's pretty exciting that we were able to get the win yesterday to break the record, but it really wasn't on any of our minds going into the game," sophomore defender Joelle Emery said. "I think that we've gotten to the point where we are just taking each game at a time, and if that allows us to break a record, it's even better."
The win broke a 25-year-old record, set by the 1979 Jumbo squad.
A big part of the Jumbos' success over the past month has been its extremely deep bench. Early in the season, junior Jen Fratto, sophomore Lauren Fedore and senior Lydia Claudio were forced to the sidelines by injuries, opening the door for six new players to step in and fill their roles.
The six quickly learned the ways of Tufts soccer, and since the three injured starters have returned to the lineup, coach Martha Whiting has been able to substitute freely without worrying about a drop in play.
"We're so used to it now, I think we're almost spoiled," Whiting said. "Right from the beginning, the younger kids were able to step up. At the beginning of the season, we had to give a lot of thought as to what we were going to do to fill the roles, but since then we haven't had to. We've come to expect it now, that anyone that goes in works hard to be just as good as the person they go in for."
Whiting stressed the sense of team that has propelled the squad to nine straight victories.
"One of the great things about this team is that there is no weird hierarchy," she said. "Once you're part of the team you're part of it, and it's almost become hard to differentiate between classes because there is no individual that's bigger than the team."
