The women's soccer team entered its NESCAC semifinal matchup against Bowdoin on Saturday in a role it has assumed regularly in the history of the conference tournament: the favorite. Unfortunately, the Jumbos left in a position that's become equally familiar: the upset victim.
The fourth-seeded Polar Bears upended the No. 2 Jumbos on penalty kicks 4-2, ending Tufts' quest for its first NESCAC title since 2002. The loss marked the fourth straight year the Jumbos were ousted from the conference tournament by a lower-seeded team.
The defeat will not end Tufts' season, however. While the Jumbos failed to win the conference tournament and secure the accompanying automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, the selection committee awarded Tufts one of 18 at-large bids to the Div. III tournament late last night. The Jumbos' chances improved after the two teams ranked in front of them in New England, Williams and Wheaton, won their respective conference tournaments, freeing an at-large bid for Tufts.
The bracket announcing Tufts' first-round opponent was not available at press time, but can be found today at ncaasports.com.
The selection committee's decision certainly eases some of the disappointment from Saturday's game, in which the Jumbos suffered a painful setback on penalty kicks after taking a lead into the second half.
Tufts jumped ahead 1-0 with 30:33 remaining in the first half when sophomore midfielder Cara Cadigan notched her 17th goal of the season, padding the single-season program mark she set last weekend. Classmate Fanna Gamal set up the pretty play, using a nice dribble move to ward off a defender before firing a crossing pass to Cadigan, who headed the ball past Bowdoin senior goalkeeper Kat Popoff to give Tufts the early advantage.
"Fanna does a great job of creating goals," coach Martha Whiting said. "That's one of her strengths. She finds a way to get herself open and she finds a way to get the ball to where she wants it to be. She couldn't have placed the ball more perfectly."
But the Jumbo offense, which registered four tallies in its lone regular-season matchup with the Polar Bears on Oct. 6, was unable to generate many more scoring opportunities.
"We had a hard time getting anything started," Whiting said. "We just couldn't find our rhythm in that game, and when you can't find your rhythm, you can't really do much. We had at least three dangerous opportunities where their goalkeeper made good saves, but for us, finding our rhythm was just tough."
Bowdoin, meanwhile, controlled possession for much of the first half, drawing six corner kicks and firing four shots on sophomore goalkeeper Kate Minnehan. But the Polar Bears were also unable to find the back of the net, and Tufts took a tenuous 1-0 lead into halftime.
With a little bit of luck, Bowdoin finally broke through 6:10 into the second half. After a rocket off the foot of Polar Bears senior forward Ann Zeigler incited a scrum in front of the Jumbos' net, Bowdoin freshman midfielder Molly Duffy recovered the loose ball and sent a shot into the lower right corner of the goal. The ball trickled just over the goal line past a sprawling Minnehan, knotting the score at one.
"It's always unfortunate when goals like that go in, because it feels like they didn't at all deserve the goal," senior Joelle Emery said. "[Minnehan] came out to make the save and collided with the girl and the ball just squeaked away and rolled into the goal. It was more of a luck goal than a well-executed goal."
The teams remained deadlocked through the remainder of regulation, forcing the Jumbos to play an overtime game in the NESCAC Tournament for the third consecutive season. But unlike the previous two years, in which Tufts yielded a deciding goal in the extra session, neither the Jumbos nor the Polar Bears could score in either of the two overtime periods, sending the game to penalty kicks.
The last time Tufts played in a playoff game decided on penalty kicks was in the 2005 NCAA Div. III Tournament quarterfinals against SUNY Oneonta, in which the Jumbos wound up victorious by a count of 4-3. This time, they came out on the losing end.
After Gamal missed an attempt in the lower right corner, Bowdoin jumped out to a decisive 3-1 edge in penalty kicks when junior defenseman Lynne Tempest fired a shot that went off of Minnehan's hands and into the back of the net. Two kicks later, with Tufts down 4-2 and needing a goal to stay alive, senior midfielder Rebecca Abbott's shot beat Popoff but clanked off the left post, sealing the Polar Bears' victory.
"It's always frustrating to lose on penalty kicks, because they're just not an indication of talent," Emery said. "It's sad that soccer even has them, in a way, because I don't think that they're in any way a good indication of who should win a game or who's the most talented team. With any penalty kick, there's so much of it that's luck."
The Jumbos will now look ahead to their second NCAA Tournament appearance in the past three years. See tomorrow's Daily for further coverage.
