Jumbos nearly pull off upset against Lord Jeffs

Tufts came close to an upset against Amherst at the LeFrak Gymnasium last Saturday, losing 3-2 (23-25, 23-25, 25-14, 25-23, 15-10) to their NESCAC rivals.

Tufts raced to a 14-9 lead in the first set, eventually wrapping up the set with 11 kills. Senior Maddie Kuppe led the way with five kills. It was a close finish for the Jumbos, as the Lord Jeffs clawed back into the first set to come within one. After a Tufts timeout settled the team's nerves, an attack error by Amherst senior Lizzie Ahern gave Tufts the first set and the lead early on. 

The second set, despite ending with the same score, had a completely different tone. The Lord Jeffs initially took control of the game to go up 16-11, but junior Mckenzie Humann picked up three kills to pull the Jumbos ahead 18-17. With the game poised at 24-23 after some impressive play from Ahern, Kuppe sealed the second set with a fine assist from senior Kyra Baum.

“We were making few errors and being smart with where we put the ball [in the first two sets]," Kuppe told the Daily in an email. "Our serve-receive was solid and our serves were tough and on target. When a team’s fundamental game is going well, usually the results correlate. We kept our side of the net under control for the first two sets against Amherst.”

Yet Amherst managed to turn it around in the third set, led by junior Nicole Gould, who eventually ended the match with 13 kills. Attacking errors from Kuppe, Humann and first-year Mackenzie Bright gave Amherst a 20-10 lead at one stage before another error from the Jumbos, this time from sophomore Katie Kim, gave the Lord Jeffs a way back into the match.

In a flurry of exchanges in the fourth set, the two sides fought for every point, with 10 score ties and seven lead changes. Neither team managed to pull away convincingly. At 23-22, Amherst junior Maggie Danner leveled the set from senior Nicole Carter, but two attacking errors by Tufts led Amherst to take the fourth set to even the match at two sets apiece.

The momentum of the match shifted as Amherst built a 6-2 lead early in the fifth. Tufts managed to fight back to level the score at 8-8 with some fine attacking play from junior Elizabeth Ahrens. The Jumbos' attempt to shift the momentum once again fell short, however, as Lord Jeffs senior Samantha Newby delivered her fifth block of the match to record a come-from-behind win for her team.

“It was a tough game for us [because] Amherst play great defense," senior co-captain Esme Nulan said. "But it showed us what we need to work on, and we’ll use it as a lesson moving forward.”

“The primary obstacle we faced in the Amherst match was a gap in communication," Kuppe added. "After the first two sets, we struggled to communicate effectively about how to handle each time the ball came to our side. It wasn’t necessarily one aspect of our game that fell apart, but rather tiny pieces of different systems on our side that ran into some issues. As it is still early in the season, I think this loss to Amherst was important to us as a learning experience. I would much rather get losses like this out of the way in the beginning of our season, rather than later on when there will be more on the line.”

With this loss, Tufts falls to 4-3 and 1-1 for the season and the NESCAC, respectively, while Amherst remains undefeated at 7-0 overall and 2-0 in the conference. The team will be playing another NESCAC opponent, Connecticut College, tomorrow at 7 p.m.