Jumbos rebound with impressive victories

The men’s lacrosse team notched a pair of dominant victories last week, winning consecutive games by double-digit margins. In an out-of-conference showdown on Tuesday, No. 3 Tufts defeated No. 8 Endicott on the road by a score of 22-6.

The win was a convincing one: the Jumbos led 8-0 after one quarter. In the first quarter, Tufts outshot Endicott by a 21-5 margin and won 19 ground balls to its opponent's seven.

Under the lights in Beverly, Mass., the Jumbos' offense played one of its most efficient and effective games of the season. The 22-goal performance tied for the team’s second-highest scoring output of the year.

In his third game since returning from injury, senior co-captain attackman Cole Bailey led the Jumbos' attack, scoring five goals and assisting on four more.

Junior attackman John Uppgren continued to add to his impressive offensive stats this season with four goals and four assists. Following the game, Uppgren led the nation in points across all NCAA divisions with 79, on 47 goals and 32 assists. As of Thursday, he remains first in points in Div. III and second overall in the nation, regardless of division.

Junior midfielders Garrett Clarke and Kyle Howard-Johnson each scored two goals and had an assist. Sophomore midfielder Zach Richman added three goals of his own on just three shots.

The Jumbos outshot the Gulls 61-47 and won the ground ball battle by a wide margin of 54-35.

The strong offense and stellar defensive play at the other end resulted in a convincing victory for the Jumbos. With the win, the Jumbos improved to 12-1 on the year while the Gulls dropped to 10-3.

“I think that our team chemistry is starting to formalize, and we are getting back to our basics of pumping it or bumping it and trying to make all our goals assisted by playing team offense,” junior midfielder Sawyer Dew told the Daily in an email.

The team suffered its first defeat of the season on April 7 at the hands of the Bates Bobcats. Much like the New England weather, the team’s offense has heated up substantially since then. According to Dew, the loss provided the Jumbos with an opportunity to learn from their mistakes.

“We focus game to game and after the loss we just made sure we refocused and moved on to Hamilton,” Dew said.

That mindset has paid off in the form of back-to-back impressive wins. Before the Endicott contest, Tufts played Hamilton on Saturday in its first game following the Bates loss.

In that game, the Jumbos blasted the Continentals, winning by an assertive margin of 25-6. Tufts peppered the Hamilton goal with shots all afternoon, boasting an impressive 79-25 shot advantage.

Against Hamilton, Bailey recorded nine points on three goals and six assists. Uppgren added five points via three goals and a pair of helpers, while Clarke scored a game-high five goals. A total of 13 different Jumbos scored on the day, which marked the team's last home game of the regular season. The 10 seniors on the roster were also honored at the game. 

According to Howard-Johnson, the team focused on getting back to its brand of lacrosse following the defeat.

"First and foremost we worry about Tufts," Howard-Johnson told the Daily in an email. "We want to get better every day, and we do that by focusing on ourselves. As for getting back on track, we take it one opponent at a time. Our main focus is the opponent at hand. The past few games we have been trying to get back to our roots. We have been sharing the ball and letting the defense decide who scores for us.”

The Jumbos face two more conference showdowns before the conclusion of the regular season. They take on the No. 6 Amherst Lord Jeffs -- the second-ranked team in the NESCAC -- on the road Saturday. Amherst and Tufts currently have identical 12-1 records and are 7-1 within the conference. The game will impact seeding in the NESCAC postseason tournament.

“It is important that we continually stick to our fundamentals and focus on the little things by playing Tufts lacrosse, and Saturday is another opportunity to do just that,” Dew said.

The team looks forward to playing their best lacrosse in the postseason, as it did last year en route to a Div. III National Championship. Even with larger goals in mind, the Jumbos are taking the season day-by-day and game-by-game.

“Coach [Daly] always says that we want to be playing our best lacrosse in May,” Howard-Johnson said. “However, our immediate focus is Amherst and getting better as a team every day. This will help us to fulfill our goal of playing our best lacrosse in May.”