Jumbos split weekend road trip

The Jumbos’ NESCAC road trip to Connecticut this weekend had mixed success.Tufts traveled down to Connecticut on Saturday and beat Conn. College 4-1 before falling to Trinity 3-1 on Sunday.

The win against the Camels was a much-needed, albeit expected one for the Jumbos coming off of a tough loss the weekend before to the Middlebury Panthers.Sunday’s loss to Trinity, which had just broken into the national top 20 early that week with a No. 17 ranking, was an upset for No. 7 Tufts.

Both the Jumbos and the Bantams came out Sunday afternoon tired from games the day before, but the Bantams started strong in the opening minutes. Striking early, Trinity took a 1-0 lead in the ninth minute when freshman forward Brenna Hobin knocked in a rebound off a shot from senior co-captain Sophie Doering.

The first half continued with both teams taking runs and trading shots, though the Bantams held the advantage and maintained ball possession for longer.

The Trinity advantage continued into the second half, and Tufts went down by two goals when the host's junior forward Olivia Tapsall scored 15 minutes into the period off another assist from Doering.

The Jumbos got on the board a few minutes later, though, when sophomore forward Dominique Zarrella drove home an unassisted goal for her team-leading seventh goal of the season. Despite this, Tufts struggled to sustain their offensive pressure and could not get anything more going against Trinity.

To seal the win, Hobin found the back of the net again with just over two minutes remaining to put the hosts up 3-1, which would be the final tally.

Throughout the game the Bantams looked more in control than the Jumbos, finishing with 25 shots, 13 on goal and six penalty corners, while holding the Jumbos to 8 shots, only three of which were on goal, and two penalty corners.

“It comes down to possession of the ball,” sophomore forward Annie Artz said. “Too many turnovers in transition hurt us. Trinity is a great team with strong defensive sticks. We needed to step up to the ball more and just in general maintain possession especially in our attacking 25.”

The day before, Tufts came out much stronger against Conn. College. The Jumbos claimed an early lead in the 13th minute that they maintained throughout the game. Junior midfielder Dakota Sikes-Keilp, last year’s leading scorer, received a ball off of a penalty corner and sent it home for her second goal of the season.

The rest of the first half was relatively quiet and the score remained 1-0 going into halftime. Early in the second half, though, junior midfielder Rachel Terveer added to Tufts’ tally, knocking in a cross from Zarrella to put her team up by two. She increased that lead to three 14 minutes later when she redirected a ball in the circle into the back of the net. The goals were her third and fourth of the season.

Late in the second half, freshman midfielder Mary Travers knocked in a rebound in front of the cage for her fourth goal of the season and the Jumbos’ fourth and final goal of the day. With under a minute and half a to play, a late Tufts defensive slip-up led to a two-on-one against Tufts senior goalkeeper Bri Keenan and resulted in a goal for Conn. College preventing a shutout for Tufts.

“I think the difference [between the games] was how strong we came out to begin the game,” junior defender Alexandra Jamison said. “Connecticut College is a really good team but from the first whistle we played our game and put pressure on their defense and were able to score first. Against Trinity, we seemed to come out a little more flat at the beginning and allowed ourselves to get behind pretty early, which is hard.”

The win was an important one for Tufts, which needed to bounce back and stay in the top tier of the conference. Admittedly, the Conn. College was 1-4 in conference play going into the game and are now 1-6. But as an indication of the difficulty of playing in the NESCAC, they are 3-1 in non-conference games.

“Every team is strong in the NESCAC so it really just comes down which team comes more ready to play on game day,” said Artz. “We want to focus on the basics: strong fundamentals and fast-paced hockey.”

The weekend’s results bring coach Tina McDavitt Mattera’s squad to 8-3 on the season and 4-3 in conference play, putting them in a tie for fifth place with Williams. The final four games of the season -- three of them against NESCAC foes, including Williams and first place Bowdoin -- will be crucial in determining Tufts' seed going into the postseason tournament.

“We're going to work on stepping up and dropping back as a unit and really taking full advantage of our system,” said Jamison. “We're also focusing on doing all the little things right all over the field. Both defense and offense are total team efforts.”

The next challenge for Tufts will be a 5:00 pm showdown this evening against No. 9 Wellesley on Bello Field. Though it won’t count for conference standings, it will be huge in building or undercutting the team’s momentum going into the final games of the season.