The Tufts women’s soccer team stepped onto Bello Field on Saturday for their first game of the NESCAC playoffs, a quarterfinal matchup against No. 7 seed Hamilton College. The Jumbos were the No. 2 seed. Earlier in the season, the Jumbos played the Continentals to a 2–2 tie. Going into the game, Tufts held a 12–2–1 record while Hamilton held a 6–6–3 record.
For their first postseason game, the Jumbos had a new and fiery mentality. “After our last regular season game on Tuesday, the team’s energy was high as it’s finally the time of year that we’ve worked so hard to get to. Going into the playoffs we know we need to work as hard as possible and consistently leave everything out there for ourselves and our seniors,” junior forward Elsi Aires wrote in an email to the Daily.
The Jumbos haven’t found success against the Continentals in a few seasons, so they came into the game ready to change their luck.
“With Hamilton, no one on the current team has ever won against them,” Aires wrote. “For the past four years, it’s been ties and losses, so going into the game we were pumped to get another chance.”
Although the first 30 minutes of the game were scoreless, the Jumbos seemed to be dominating possession and taking significantly more shots than the Continentals were.
“At the start of the game, we had so many scoring opportunities, so we kept reassuring each other that it was going to come,” Aires wrote.
Eventually, the Jumbos were proven correct in the 35th minute, when the scoreless streak ended with a perfectly slotted ball by sophomore forward Waverly Sumner and an excellently timed run and sliding shot by Aires putting the Jumbos up 1–0.
The Continentals were unable to make much else happen in the remaining 10 minutes, and the half ended with the Jumbos still keeping possession of the ball for the majority of the time. By the end of the half, Tufts had 20 shots to Hamilton’s six. The Jumbos’ back line successfully kept the Continentals’ options in the attacking half limited throughout the entirety of the first half.
“A positive takeaway from the game is our team’s improvement of our ability to adapt. Hamilton had multiple formation switches, and our team was able to deny any of their threats,” Aires wrote.
Despite having the lead, the Jumbos were not complacent at the half. “At half time, we emphasized that we cannot let up. In our first game against Hamilton, we started with the lead and fell to a tie because our energy lowered. Coming out after half, we knew they were going to be energized so we wanted to match that and go beyond,” Aires wrote.
Hamilton came back from halftime with a newfound energy and began to up their intensity. They attempted many attacks on the Jumbos’ defense, but the back line held strong, and junior defender Lena Sugrue, senior defender Caroline O’Neill and senior defender Jordan Cushner were able to keep them away from the Jumbos’ goal.
The Continentals put five shots on the board in the second half, with four being on goal. The Jumbos’ sophomore goalkeeper Gigi Edwards smothered their only close call with a diving save on a shot to the bottom right corner of the goal. Although the Jumbos were unable to find the back of the net again in the second half, they were able to come away with the win because of a strong backline and the first-half goal from Aires.
In order to break their streak of losses and ties to the Continentals, the Jumbos had been working on fixing what they had struggled with when playing them in the past.
“Leading up to the game, Coach Martha [Whiting] consistently pushes our intensity in practices so that it replicates what the game will be like,” Aires wrote. “In our first game against Hamilton, we struggled with our ability to build out of our defensive end, so we worked on that lots!”
Coming off of their win, the Jumbos now have to prepare for the rest of the NESCAC playoffs. “We are planning on bringing the same energy and fight into our next game. We know it will be tough, but we know from the regular season that we can do it.”
Tufts takes on Amherst College in the NESCAC semifinals on Saturday at Wesleyan in Middletown, Connecticut. If they beat Amherst, they will play for the NESCAC championship on Sunday.
