This past weekend brought huge victories for a praised New England dynasty, led by a head coach who has been at the helm since the early 2000s. The 16–1 Jumbos rumbled on this week, picking up a 65–49 win over the Worcester State Lancers (12–5) on Wednesday and a 72–51 victory over the Bates Bobcats (7–8) on Saturday. The team, whose sole loss of the season came at the hands of Bowdoin College on Jan. 5, has seven more games in a possibly record-breaking season; Tufts women's basketball has never lost fewer than three games in a season in program history.
Fresh off the heels of their win over Worcester State, Tufts returned to Cousens Gymnasium on Saturday to host the Bates Bobcats for a NESCAC game. The Jumbos were favorites from the start — the Bobcats were eighth in the NESCAC while the Jumbos were tied for third going into the match. But as junior guard/forward and co-captain Erica DeCandido explained, playing against a NESCAC team is a whole different ballgame.
“The NESCAC is always so challenging, and it’s just a whole different atmosphere,” DeCandido said. “Every game is competitive. It doesn’t matter if a game is really close or not that close, a NESCAC team is going to come at you with all they’ve got.”
Indeed, the Bobcats gave the Jumbos all they had in a very competitive first quarter. The Bobcats came into the game with an aggressive approach, successfully scoring points from range. Senior guard/forward and captain Erica Lamere was instrumental in Bates’ effort, shooting 2–3 from downtown. Among Lamere’s shots was a three-pointer off of an assist by first-year guard Meghan Graff, which marked the Bobcats’ final basket of the quarter. This gave the Bobcats a 15–14 edge over the Jumbos going into the second quarter. Coach Carla Berube spoke about the energy the Bobcats brought to the first quarter of the game.
“They came out with a lot of energy and they were getting after loose balls, 50–50 balls, and scrapping,” Berube said. “They really play five guards, so they’re able to spread you out. It was challenging in the first quarter.”
DeCandido spoke about the difficulties Tufts faced in the first quarter of Saturday’s game as well as explaining how her team set the stage for their successful second quarter.
“I think that they were doing a lot on defense, and our shots weren’t really falling," DeCandido said. "They set a lot of screens, and they were moving the ball really well and knocking down threes. We knew that’s what they were going to do, and I think that we were just in a little rut, but by the second quarter we picked it up on defense.”
The Jumbos' colossal efforts in the second quarter paved the way for their eventual victory. The quarter started with both teams trading points back-and-forth, until junior guard Sadie Otley gave the Jumbos the lead with a layup, setting the score to 21–19. In an effort to mitigate Tufts’ scoring run, the Bobcats took a timeout, after which junior guard Melanie Binkhorst immediately banked a 2-pointer to tie the game at 21. The hosts followed up with an outstanding defensive effort. Following Binkhorst’s score, the Jumbo defense held the Bobcats scoreless for the final six minutes of the half, notching eight defensive rebounds and five steals throughout the entirety of the second quarter.
The Jumbos capitalized on their strong defensive performance, going on an offensive run that ultimately secured their strong lead that remained for the rest of the game. Senior guard and co-captain Jac Knapp turned two of her steals into scores through assists and scored five points of her own, including a 3-pointer. Both co-captains scored a combined 12 points in the second quarter, including DeCandido’s impressive performance from the free throw line, where she went 5–5.
The rest of the Jumbos built off of the momentum set by the defense, including first-year guard Janette Wadolowski, who shot 3–3 from the field for a total of six points in the quarter, topped only by DeCandido's seven. The Jumbos strongly outperformed the Bobcats in the second quarter, scoring 28 points to the Bobcat’s six points. By the end of the first half, the Jumbos had doubled their lead over the Bobcats to push the score to 42–21.
Despite promising runs in the third and fourth quarters of the game, the Bobcats were unable to come within a margin of victory of the Jumbos for the rest of the game, losing to the NESCAC matchup by a final score of 72–52.
Berube spoke about her expectations and goals for the team moving forward, as well as acclaiming the promising signs her defense showed in the second quarter of the Bates game.
“I want our defense to keep getting better. I don’t think it’s quite where it needs to be for us to be as successful as we want to be,” Berube said. “So we’ll just keep on working, and hopefully, like we always say, a great defense fuels easy offense, and that’s what happened last night in the second quarter.”
Three days earlier, the Jumbos hosted the Worcester State Lancers at Cousens Gymnasium for a non-conference matchup. While the game proved to be competitive, the visitors ultimately could not overcome the Jumbos' early lead. Tufts proved dominant in the first half, outscoring Worcester State 16–9 in two consecutive quarters and entered the second half up 14 points. Worcester State came back from the half hungry for redemption and went 8–13 from the field in the third quarter, the highest scoring quarter of the night for either team. In the end, however, Tufts’ strong offensive performance — led by first-year guard Molly Ryan, who led the Jumbos with 13 points — proved essential in securing their victory.
The games this week also emphasized the home stretch for the Jumbos. With only seven games remaining in their regular season, the Jumbos, currently No. 6 in the country, intend to return to the NESCAC and NCAA tournaments this year. They face off against five of their remaining NESCAC rivals, including Amherst College (14–1), who narrowly beat Tufts 44–40 last year in the NESCAC final and currently co-lead the NESCAC standings with Bowdoin.
DeCandido spoke about some of the expectations the team has set going into the final games of the season, stressing the difficulties the team will face against its strong NESCAC opponents.
“Every win, every point scored is going toward our end goal of going to the NCAA tournament and getting some home games for those tournament games,” DeCandido said. “For [the] NESCAC, every game matters because the NESCAC is really strong and every game at this point is a NESCAC game, aside from a couple out-of-conference games. Those wins will translate later on in the season.”
Despite the high expectations, Berube emphasized the importance of focusing on improving with each upcoming game.
“We’re not really thinking about the postseason right now,” Berube said. “Of course, we’ve got some goals to be playing in both the NESCAC tournament as well as making it to the [NESCAC] championship game and NCAA [tournament] and beyond. But we’re really trying to focus on our next opponent. And so, throughout the year, it’s always 'let's work every day at practice and every game to just get better. Let’s take steps forward, let’s not take steps backward.'"
The Jumbos welcomes the WPI Goats (7–9) to Cousens Gymnasium for a non-conference contest tonight at 7 p.m.
Women's basketball victorious in back-to-back defensive games
