Tufts University Football Club — the men's club soccer team — capped off one of the best seasons in its history with a berth to the National Intramural and Recreational Sports Association (NIRSA) Championships, held in Foley, Ala. on Nov. 17-19. Despite a strong showing, the team was unable to overcome any of the Div. I opponents it faced and finished the tournament winless.
The team earned the trip to Nationals with success at Regionals held in New Castle, Del. on Oct. 29-30. Tufts defeated Rochester 1-0 in its opening game of pool play on Saturday, Oct. 29, before losing 1-0 to a very physical Carnegie Mellon team later that day.This put the team in a precarious position as it geared up to play Johns Hopkins on Sunday, needing to finish at the top of the group or be the “best of the rest” to win an at-large bid to the next round.
“At this point, we thought the season was over, because it was very difficult to make it out of the group without having won all of your games,” sophomore Thomas Coons said. “We knew that going into Johns Hopkins on the following day we had to get a really good goal differential and score as many goals as possible and get that win so that we could get an at-large bid.”
That motivation was evident as Tufts thumped Johns Hopkins 5-1 on Sunday. Goals from sophomore Jarod Glover, juniors Shant Mahrokhian and Sal Sprofera, along with two from sophomore Paolo Melendez,gave the Jumbos a large enough goal margin to qualify for the knockout round.
“We played one of our best games against Johns Hopkins, which gave us momentum going into the playoffs," Coons said. "That momentum was huge, because when we played Messiah, which was a really really good team, we had the best game, I think, of the season. We played out of our minds, we had the better possession, we scored three goals against really good defense and that was great.”
Tufts' momentum continued throughout the rest of the day as it then comfortably saw off Messiah Blue 3-0 in the semi-final. The final game of the Regional saw a tightly contested match between Northeastern and Tufts, with both sides having plenty of chances to take the lead. The breakthrough came late in the game, as the Jumbos sealed a berth to nationals with a game-winner, assisted by first-year Noah Neve.
Highlighting the additional challenges club teams face with limited budgets, getting to Nationals posed a major obstacle in and of itself, given the size of the team and the cost of the plane tickets. The Tufts community actively contributed to the team’s GoFundMe page, raising $1,600, or close to 15 percent of the team’s overall costs. Coons said that other sources of funding included other club soccer teams around the region, club soccer alumni and extra funding from TCU and President Monaco’s office.
Nationals was a completely different ballgame for the Jumbos – Tufts was the only Div. III team competing, and was thus playing teams from much larger schools, often with fifth- and sixth-year students who had expended their NCAA eligibility.
Coons said that, unlike Tufts, some of these teams had two to three coaches and even a trainer, but this in itself was a source of pride for the Tufts team.
"Part of the reason of our success, and why we're so proud of our success is because we're student-run and we're still able to play at the highest level," Coons said. But at a certain point, it was tough playing against schools that had a tremendous amount of funding, tremendous amount of kids to choose from."
Tufts was drawn in the same group as the University of Cincinnati and Colorado State University. The Jumbos lost both of their games on the opening day, Nov. 17, starting with a 1-0 loss to the Cincinnati Bearcats. Tufts had a goal disallowed by an offsides call and then conceded on the counterattack. Tufts also fell in its second group stage game 2-0 to Colorado State. In the consolation bracket Tufts fell 3-0 to the University of Colorado to finish the team's season.
In total, the Jumbos were unable to score against their opponents and conceded six goals, but the fact that they even made it to Nationals was an accomplishment itself.
“Going into [Nationals], it was nice to see all the other big name schools," sophomore defender Derek Sims said. "We’re not one of these 50-thousand student schools, so there was that in the back of our minds, that we’re relatively good compared to these people and we just wanted to prove them wrong. We knew other people would see Tufts on their schedule and say, ‘Oh, we’re playing this Div. III school it’s gonna be a walk in the park' and we wanted to prove them wrong. Unfortunately we couldn’t put together enough to win, but everyone at the end was still very proud that we made it this far, that we were representing ourselves well.”
Despite the result, Coons believed the team learned a lot from their trip to Alabama.
"Nationals was really cool because we could see the highest level. You could play in Regionals, in the group stages or just against really good teams, but once you see the best teams in the nation playing, you get a sense of what needs to be done next year," Coons said. "And everyone who's returning to the team next year knows that there just needs to be a little more discipline towards training, [and we need to] put the time in the offseason for fitness, because we've seen the next level and we want to get to that level."
Tufts attends club nationals as only Div. III team
