Following last Saturday’s 14-9 loss to Williams, the women’s lacrosse team bounced back to take care of the Tufts Jumbos, 9-8. The Cards improve to 8-3 (3-3 NESCAC). The Cardinals put themselves into a four-way tie for fourth place in the NESCAC with Bowdoin, Colby, and Trinity.
The Red and Black scoring machine broke open the first half. Becca Vogel ’05, the school’s second all-time leading scorer, sent home the first goal of the game six minutes into the contest. The Jumbos countered quickly, beating Meriel Darzen ’04, who received her first start of the year giving Kate Jones ’06 a blow. Vogel, assisted by captain Bernadette Doykos ’04, shot back for her tenth on the year and the 2-1 lead. Although Tufts scored late to tie it up, Vogel only needed eleven seconds to score again. Becky Meredith ’06 found the net after another 38 seconds for the two-goal lead. The Jumbos closed to within one after 38 more ticks of the clock. The lead expanded to three when Martina McPherson ’04 scored twice in a span of fourteen seconds. The second came on an assist by Laura Siegle ’06 with 14:28 remaining in the half, which gave the Cardinals a 6-3 lead. Tufts beat Darzen one last time before the half with 7:25 to to send the Cardinals into the half with a 6-4 lead.
Vogel closed to within six points of Debbie Saudek’s ’92 career record for points. She seems unconcerned despite her chase of the record.
“I really feel no pressure at all. If it happens this season then it happens,” Vogel said. “All that is really on our minds right now are our last three regular season games. Hopefully we can pull them out and have some momentum heading into the NESCAC Tournament.”
“We focus on the team and team goals, never individual records,” said head coach Holly Wheeler. “We put pressure on ourselves as a team to perform. It doesn’t come from anywhere else.”
The second half proved a closer match for the Birds. Within four minutes of the opening face-off, the two goal cushion was gone as the Jumbos netted a pair of goals. At 24:29, Vogel scored her fourth and final goal to take back a 7-6 lead which held for nearly thirteen minutes due to stellar defense from Emily Pfeiffer ’05 and Katharine Needham ’05 as well as quality play from Darzen who stopped eight shots in her first extended play of the year.
With 11:51 to go, the Jumbos tied the game at seven. Only a few minutes later, freshman Ellen Werble ’07 beat the Tufts net-minder for the team’s eighth score. At 8:22, Tufts tied the score again. With 6:09 remaining, McPherson put home her third score, which turned out to be the game winner.
“Tufts was a huge victory for us and gives us just the momentum we need going into Saturday’s game, which is possibly the biggest game of our season,” McPherson said. “[Jen Bianculli ’07] had a really great game despite her almost scoring a goal for the other team. It was a close call but Darz reached it in time.”
Despite the victory, Wheeler saw need for improvement.
“We have a few areas of our game that we will focus on improving and tweaking for the Amherst game, particularly tightening our defense and making our attack more dangerous,” Wheeler said.
The thirteenth-ranked Cardinals play again Saturday at home against Little Three rival Amherst who are ranked third in the nation.
“Amherst’s coaches were in the crowd at the Tufts game and someone said they looked really nervous,” McPherson said. “As they should be.”
Leave a Reply