In a weekend that saw the Tufts volleyball, field hockey and soccer teams come up short in the NESCAC tournament play, one Tufts team held the Jumbo banner on the national stage and brought home some hardware.
In its first-ever bid to the Div III National Collegiate Club Championships, the water polo team took third place after a weekend of play at Wesleyan. The tournament field consisted of seven teams representing club divisions from across the country.
The Jumbos kicked off the weekend with a 10-6 victory over NYU, followed by an 11-5 loss at the hands of eventual champion Lindenwood. Tufts redeemed itself with a narrow 7-6 win over Macalester to clinch third place. Host team Wesleyan fell in the title match to Lindenwood, 8-6, to pick up second place at the tournament.
"Our team was really excited to take third place out of this pretty prestigious tournament," junior Marshall Somers said. "It felt really good to end the season with a win and to get national recognition and come home with a plaque."
The squad competes in the New England Club Division with NESCAC rivals Amherst, Wesleyan and Williams, along with the Coast Guard Academy, the University of Rhode Island and Yale. The regular season consisted of two round robin tournaments, followed by the New England Division Championship, which determined which squads earned bids to the Div. III Collegiate Club Championships or the more competitive Collegiate Club Championships, which includes teams from all three divisions.
Tufts finished fourth in the conference, typically not enough to secure a slot in the championships. However, because the hosting division for the Div. III Championships, in this case Tufts' own New England Division, sends two teams to the tournament, the Jumbos' position was good enough for a bid.
"We were really excited to get a bid to the tournament," senior co-captain Ray Radovich said. "Getting third [at Div. III Championships] really proved that we belonged there. Some people had said that we didn't deserve to be at a national tournament because we got fourth at our division championship, but we really proved them wrong by playing well against every team."
Tufts squared off against the NYU Bobcats in its first match. Back-and-forth play kept the Jumbos from establishing a rhythm, and they found themselves down 6-4 heading into the fourth period. However, the tables quickly turned, as six unanswered Tufts goals propelled the Jumbos to a 10-6 victory.
Sophomore Peter Georgakakos, who earned First Team All-Tournament honors, scored four goals for the Jumbos while sophomore goalie Hayden Reich notched five saves in the winning effort.
"I feel like skill-wise and physically we were better than [NYU], and we had many opportunities to prove it," Somers said. "I feel like we dominated that game; we just couldn't finish our goals. By the fourth quarter, we finally pulled our game together and clamped down on defense and shut them down."
The semifinal match against the Lindenwood Lions proved problematic, as the Lions' unorthodox team plan baffled Tufts en route to an 11-5 loss.
"Lindenwood played a really different style of play from what we're used to," Radovich said. "They're a very big, physical team and had one very strong offensive player that they really featured. We couldn't control him, and that led to them controlling the whole game.
"That team was a two-man team," he continued. "The deciding factor in the game was the goalie who shut us down on offense and this other player who was a great offensive player."
The offensive star for Lindenwood, graduate student Danilo Lazarevic from Serbia, who netted six goals against Tufts, earned a full ejection from the game at the end of the third quarter when he bit Tufts freshman Matt Burke. Lazarevic would go on to win the tournament MVP award, raising eyebrows on the Jumbo squad.
"We all thought that was ridiculous after he bit one of our players," Somers said.
Tufts' final match of the tournament against the Macalester Fighting Scots proved a close one as the Jumbos escaped with a 7-6 victory. The Jumbos found themselves down 5-3 in the third period, but four straight goals helped Tufts recover and hold on for the win and capture a third place finish. Georgakakos came up with a hat trick in the victory, while Reich managed four saves in goal.
"That game was pretty much a game of runs," Radovich said. "Macalester would go on a run, and then we would stop them and come back at them with a run of our own, and luckily we were able to finish up with more runs than they did."
"I think we played a really good game against Macalester," Somers added. "We played a really defensive game. They basically had a one-man offense, and we shut him down and took advantage of our offensive opportunities."
The Jumbos' fine play featured several outstanding individual efforts by players such as Burke, a Second Team All-Tournament selection. Georgakakos, however, remained the anchor of the offense, scoring eight goals for Tufts in the tournament.
"We got some solid play all around," Radovich said. "[Freshman] Braulio Rivas played solid throughout the entire tournament and was a stabilizing force out there for us. [Sophomore] Ben Mitchell played really well too.
"[Georgakakos] is our driving force on offense," Radovich continued. "He gives us a dimension because he's a left-handed scorer that teams have to pay attention to, which opens up opportunities for the rest of the team."
With the Div. III Championships marking the end of the season, the Jumbos look ahead to next year when they will aim to capitalize on the unprecedented success of the 2006 run.
"We had a great season this year, and we're only graduating a couple of seniors," Radovich said. "So keep your eyes open for great things in the next couple of years from Tufts water polo."
