The baseball team's 10-game winning streak came to a screeching halt this past weekend with two extra-inning losses to Colby. Despite beating the Mules 9-2 on Friday, the Jumbos gave up two games on Saturday, 5-4 and 3-2, and now find themselves trying to recreate the success of the past weeks.
"I think we came into the game with a lot of confidence," junior tri-captain Nick Cutsumpas said. "I think we actually came in with too much confidence, especially after the first game, which we won pretty handily. We got a little complacent."
In the first game of the weekend, the Jumbos combined solid pitching with timely hitting. After scoring four runs in the fifth inning, Tufts was able to jump to a 6-1 lead. From there, the team coasted to a win by tacking on three more runs in the ninth, showing why they have the potential to be one of the best teams in the NESCAC.
"It was great to get out on top of Colby early," junior tri-captain Christian Sbily said. "We knew that if we could get ahead of them early and get to their bullpen, we could be successful. We did a great job at the plate, of moving runners over and getting runs in when we needed to get them in, adding some insurance runs and putting them away."
Tufts also benefited from shutting Colby out once they went to their bullpen in the fifth inning.
"On the mound we did a good job of getting ahead of hitters, and dictating the tempo of the game," Sbily said.
Despite outplaying the Mules in many facets of the game, the players still noted some concern on the defensive side of the ball, as the Jumbos made two errors in the field on Friday.
"That first game, even though we won, we did make a lot of errors, we didn't run the bases particularly well, and we didn't have as good at-bats as we wanted to have," Cutsumpas said. "I think guys were still happy with the win, but we didn't respond as we needed to and improve upon some of Friday's mistakes."
Instead, during its first Saturday game, the Jumbos found themselves in an unfamiliar position, down 3-0 after the second inning. Then two Tufts runs in the 4th were followed by a run from Colby in the bottom half of the inning to extend the lead to 4-2. Meanwhile, in the sixth inning, the Jumbos managed to scrape two more runs across the plate to tie things up at 4-4.
In this game, though, the Jumbos could not conjure up their late-inning magic, and instead Colby drove in the game-winning run in the bottom of the ninth on a single from sophomore pinch-hitter Nils Carlson.
The late game drama spilled over into the second half of the doubleheader, as the second game of the day also went to the bottom of the ninth.
Earlier in the game, Tufts was able to get out on top first, scoring two runs in the top of the fourth. Colby did not go away, though, as they scored a run in the bottom half of the inning and finally tied the game in the bottom of the seventh.
Once again, Colby managed to come out with the late inning win, when sophomore Tim Corey scored from third because Tufts could not successfully turn a double play.
"When things weren't going our way, and the games got a lot closer, the team morale got down," Cutsumpas said. "We lost track of what made us so successful, and we started resorting to bad habits that got us in trouble."
The Jumbos will be looking to put both of those tough losses in their rearview mirror and learn from this past weekend, hoping to vault back into the second spot of the NESCAC east division, where they currently sit two games back of 7-2 Bowdoin.
"If we play the way we are supposed to play, we come out on top, and if we don't take advantage of opportunities and beat ourselves, that's when we end up falling short," Sbily said. "We just have to get back to it and start preparing for our upcoming games."
