Tufts Clinch the NESCAC Top Seed as Saturday’s Division III Clinches Pile Up
No. 1 Tufts just don’t lose. A 3-2 win at Williams on Saturday, Riley Schmidt scoring the winner with 2:19 left, and the NESCAC top seed is theirs. That’s 14-0 overall, 9-0 in the conference, and a 19-game winning streak. Nineteen. At some point you stop calling it a good run and start calling it what it is: the best team in the country playing like it.
Saturday was a clinching kind of day all across Division III, and Tufts weren’t the only ones celebrating.
Wilkes beat Moravian 2-1 in the Landmark Conference, Maddie Karp scoring both, and that clinches a home game in the Landmark Tournament. Wilkes are 10-7, 6-2 in the league. Union beat Vassar 3-1 in the Liberty League to clinch a postseason spot in their final league game. And Stevens blanked Lebanon Valley 3-0 to clinch the MAC Freedom Tournament’s No. 1 seed.
Susquehanna kept their season alive the hard way, a 2-0 shutout of Lycoming that leaves them holding the sixth and final Landmark Tournament spot with one game left. No. 19 Washington & Lee won their seventh straight, 6-3 over Meredith, Madeline Lancione scoring twice and setting up two more. MIT beat Smith 2-1 for a seventh straight win of their own in the NEWMAC, and Springfield edged Wheaton 4-3 on strokes after double overtime, Wheaton having tied it twice in the fourth quarter.
Further down the card: No. 18 York (PA) beat DeSales 4-0 behind a Katelyn Landis hat trick; Misericordia edged Arcadia 3-2 to leave both sides 3-3 in the MAC Freedom; Skidmore beat William Smith 4-3 in the Liberty League, Gianna DiGioacchino scoring the winner in the 53rd minute and Nicole Sylvestri making 15 saves; Plymouth State beat Eastern Connecticut 3-1 in the Little East, Ellie Monahan scoring twice; Hartford beat Gordon 3-1 for the first conference win in the programme’s two-year history; Hartwick beat St. John Fisher 3-1 in the Empire 8, Mary Kate McPhee scoring her 11th of the season; and Brockport put five past Houghton.
One day, a dozen stories, and a postseason picture that got a lot clearer. Tuesday’s NESCAC finales, Tufts hosting Bowdoin and Middlebury hosting Williams, will finish the job.
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