For the first 60 minutes of Sunday's first-round playoff matchup with the Trinity Bantams, the women's soccer team experienced a high level of frustration. For the last 30 seconds, they experienced a higher level of anxiety.
The Jumbos, the fourth seed in the NESCAC tournament, defeated Trinity 2-1, but a game that seemed destined for an uneventful ending was turned on its head in the final minute.
With the game's finish nearing, Tufts led 1-0 and was dominating possession in Trinity's half, keeping the ball in the corner and not allowing a chance at the comeback. With just under a minute left, junior defender Audrey Almy sent a high clearance into the Trinity half that turned the last Trinity defender towards her own net to give chase. Sprinting from behind her, however, was Tufts senior forward Jesslyn Jamison, who surged in front of Trinity's defender to win the ball and then volleyed a shot over Trinity junior goalkeeper Emily Weedon to put the Jumbos ahead 2-0.
"It felt great to do something so important for my team and to see all of their reactions," Jamison said of her first goal of the season. "I've played forward for a long time, and ultimately your job is to score goals. It's obviously difficult, but when you do it's rewarding, especially when you get one that's so important."
Just twelve seconds later, though, and with just 30 seconds remaining, Trinity answered with its first tally to make it a one-goal game once again. Taking the kickoff and dribbling through a few Tufts defenders, Trinity sophomore forward Leigh Howard took a shot from 30 yards out that dipped under Tufts' senior goalie Kate Minnehan. Tufts' bench and the crowd, who were still celebrating Jamison's goal, stood in disbelief.
"We were super excited about scoring our second goal," head coach Martha Whiting said. "Jesslyn is one of our seniors and [hadn't] scored yet this year, and we were all excited that she scored and maybe too excited. We had to go back on our heels after their goal. [Howard] is good and she dribbled at us. I don't think we were really ready for it."
The 30 seconds between the Bantams' goal and the final whistle were more nerve-wracking than Tufts would have liked, but the Jumbos stayed calm and Trinity's comeback ran out of time.
"We sort of stopped playing, but even with their goal we still knew that we had won and that with 30 seconds left there wasn't much that they could do," sophomore defender Cleo Hirsch said. "The goal got us back into game mode and we made sure we did what we had to do to win."
Up until Trinity's goal, the game — and especially the second half — was dominated by a Tufts team that was able to keep possession through the midfield. The Jumbos were calm with the ball at their feet and took advantage of the time and space with which they often found themselves. In contrast, the Bantams seemed frantic when they received the ball and were constantly under pressure from Tufts defenders.
"In the second half, I thought we possessed very well," Whiting said. "We work a lot in practice on possessing the ball. We tend to have numbers with our three center midfielders and we were able to play the ball through [sophomore] Lauren O'Connor, our holding midfielder, very well. Towards the end of the first half and through the second half, our outside backs were able to win balls a little bit higher, and it's really important to get them involved on that side of the field."
But for all of Tufts' dominance in possession, the scoreboard still showed zeroes at the end of the first half, and it was difficult not to remember the regular-season matchup between the two teams. In that game, played just two weeks ago, Tufts ended in a 1-1 draw after the Jumbos generally controlled play but could not find the net in either overtime period.
"It was really frustrating because we had gone five full halves without having scored a goal, and that's over three hours of soccer without putting the ball in the net," Whiting said of her team's being shut out in the past two games, first against Williams and then against Bowdoin. "But we were primed, we were ready and we were getting chances."
In the 57th minute, senior midfielder Fanna Gamal put an end to the frustration by finishing one of those chances. The Jumbos switched the ball on the ground across midfield, and it reached sophomore midfielder Alix Michael on the right wing. After beating a defender, Michael slotted a well-weighted through-ball to senior forward Ali Maxwell, who chipped the ball from the right side of the box to a streaking Gamal. The senior put Tufts on the board by heading the ball past the goalie's right side.
Following the win, Tufts advances to the NESCAC Tournament semifinals with the hopes of winning its first conference title since 2002. The Jumbos will travel to Williamstown, Mass. to take on the top-seeded Williams Ephs, who defeated Colby 4-0 on Sunday. Last Saturday, Williams scored with under five minutes left to defeat the Jumbos 1-0. Having played them tough a week ago, the Jumbos believe they can battle with the 15-0-0 regular season champions.
"We played them last week and we played them very evenly, and I think that gives our team a lot of confidence," Whiting said. "I think we need to keep doing what we're doing and continue to have a good attacking mindset; we have to be willing to do whatever it takes in both [of the 18-yard boxes]."
David Heck contributed reporting to this article.
