Despite a strong 3-0 victory over Mt. Holyoke College last Wednesday, the Jeffs encountered the 10th-ranked team in the nation on Saturday, and the story was quite different. The 4-0 loss to the Tufts Jumbos dropped the Jeffs’ NESCAC record to 2-3, which keeps Amherst in fifth place. After beginning the season so well, the recent string of losses has not only tarnished the Jeffs’ record; it has also tested the team’s confidence in its ability to win big games. Luckily for the Jeffs, however, they have already played three of the four teams ranked above them in the NESCAC, so the road to the conference tournament should be downhill from here.
“We just need to keep working hard—the NESCAC is the best [Div. III] conference in the country, so every game is difficult—and we’re just as capable as the other teams. We’re very athletic and talented,” said tri-captain midfielder Alyssa Dudzik ’09. “I think we need to go into every game with relaxed confidence and play as well as we all know we can. We have so much potential waiting to get out, it just all needs to click one game and we won’t look back from there.”
Though rookie forward Carly Dudzik notched a goal just three minutes into the match against Mt. Holyoke, the rest of the first half was certainly not the best field hockey the Jeffs can play. Amherst reentered the game in the second frame with more focus and energy, adding two more goals for a convincing, if unsatisfying, 3-0 win.
“Mt. Holyoke is an improved team,” noted senior goalkeeper Jane Mostue. “While we never disregard any team as completely beatable or as a definite win, I think we were surprised at the force with which Mt. Holyoke entered into the game.”
Nerves and lack of focus seemed to be the main problems for the Jeffs against Tufts on Saturday. Although the Jumbos outshot the Lord Jeffs 9-1 in the first period and had six penalty corners in comparison to Amherst’s one, the they only led the Jeffs 1-0 with three minutes left in the half. However, the small margin—due in large part to several stellar blocks by junior defender Tierney Healy—was doubled with 2:57 to go before halftime, making an Amherst comeback that much harder. The second half of the game featured more of the same domination by Tufts, as the visiting team added two more goals en route to a shutout.
“We definitely didn’t play our best game as a team,” said a disappointed Dudzik. “We came out strong but seemed to lose our momentum once Tufts got a goal in the first half. We weren’t aggressive enough, especially with 50-50 balls. Our defense, as a team and individually, wasn’t strong and we made many mistakes that we usually don’t. Tufts is a very talented team, so I think we learned a lot both from watching our mistakes and from looking at how they play together. We learned just how important it is to stay in the game mentally even when you’re scored against.”
The key to the Jeffs’ success in the coming weeks is threefold: they must use mistakes from previous games to guide their training, they have to put their losses behind them, and they need to be confident in their ability to compete.
“We have to be able to tell ourselves that we are a good team,” explained Mostue. “We execute so many skills in practice and we really click as a team on and off the field. Every player must have the confidence in themselves as well as in each other to play ‘our’ game, to trust one another, and to know that we can be unstoppable if we play with confidence and tenacity.”