The Tufts Daily - Friday, February 16, 2018

‘Le Nozze Di Figaro,’ first full opera performed in eight years, opens this weekend see ARTS&LIVING / PAGE 5

TUFTS BASKETBALL

Jumbos look toward NESCAC Championships

Men’s squash finishes regular season on high note. see SPORTS / BACK PAGE

SEE SPORTS / BACK PAGE

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Friday, February 16, 2018

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New freeform podcast ‘Beyond Glass Walls’ explores social, political issues

by Abbie Gruskin Contributing Writer

This past week, Tufts sophomores Samuel Joseph and Hendricks Delva started a new podcast titled “Beyond Glass Walls.” The podcast is meant to touch on a wide range of political and social issues affecting students on campus through a series of natural, freeform conversations, according to Joseph and Delva.

Each week, they invite fellow students to add their voices to the conversation. The first episode is available now on SoundCloud.

The podcast has been in the works since last year, but has materialized only recently, according to Joseph.

“This is something we both have been contemplating since early first semester, and we didn’t get the resources and organization together until about last semester,” Joseph said.

Joseph said they recorded their first episode over winter break and started editing as soon as they returned to Tufts.

Inspired by conversations with their peers, Joseph and Delva said they want to

foster open dialogue around controversial subjects such as race.

“Our first inspiration was last year,” Delva said. “It was one of those late nights where you stay up, having a really nice conversation with your friends. I think we might have been talking about race and social dynamics overall.”

Before formally recording, editing, and publishing their first episode, “White People are Here,” on SoundCloud, Joseph and Delva spontaneously recorded conversations with their peers, they explained.

“It actually started out as us … recording conversations that we were just having with people,” said Joseph. “Now we’re starting to get into a little more organized routine.”

The name for their podcast, “Beyond Glass Walls,” was born from an anecdote that arose in one of these impromptu conversations, according to Delva. “[Researchers] put a glass wall in [a] goldfish’s tank so that the fish could not go to the other side of the tank, and as the goldfish tried to go to the other side of the tank it eventually learned,” Delva see BEYOND GLASS WALLS, page 2

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Sophomores Samuel Joseph and Hendricks Delva, creators of ‘Beyond Glass Walls,’ a new podcast on social and political issues, pose for a portrait on Feb. 10.

EconoFact continues to grow, reintroduces facts, analysis into policy debates

by Emily Thompson Contributing Writer

KIRT THORNE / THE TUFTS DAILY

EconoFact, an online publication launched just over a year ago by faculty at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, is continuing to work toward its mission of reintroducing facts and economic analysis into public discourse on social and economic policy.

EconoFact provides data and analysis of current policy issues through short memos written in accessible language, according to the EconoFact website.

Michael Klein, the William L. Clayton professor of international economic affairs at The Fletcher School and co-executive director of EconoFact, said he noticed a lack of sound economic policy ideas from either side during the 2016 presidential election campaign and wondered what he could do to remedy it. Klein was the chief economist in the Office of International Affairs of the U.S. Department of the Treasury from 2010 to 2011.

Kailash Prasad, Michael Klein and Edward Schumacher-Matos pose for a portrait in Cabot.

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THE TUFTS DAILY | News | Friday, February 16, 2018

THE TUFTS DAILY Catherine Perloff Editor-in-Chief

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Mary Carroll Zachary Hertz

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Sophomores Samuel Joseph, Hendricks Delva embrace dialogue in new podcast

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“It’s about the trauma that comes in the parent-to-child relationship, not only trauma kids get from their parents but also the trauma that parents get from kids, and how it just perpetuates and adds to the cycle,” Delva said.

Sophomore Paige Shephard said she was invited to be a guest on the episode. She shared her thoughts on the modern day relationship between parents and children.

“Our discussion was on all things parents: how we differ from that generation, how technology affects us, if everyone has some type of ‘family trauma,’ coming of age, discussing the concept of creating life and analyzing how our families raised us,” Shephard said.

The conversations in each episode are intimate, occurring between only four or five people in an attempt to make every guest feel comfortable expressing their personal opinions and experiences, according to Joseph.

“We’re trying to make dialogue in a true non-confrontational way, in a way that people don’t feel the need to be defensive over their point of view, that’s kind of what makes our podcast stand out,” Joseph said. “At the core of our podcast is civic dialogue, civic engagement with each other and exploring our opinions.”

Joseph and Delva said they hope to share their own personal experiences and the experiences of others with a wider audience, as well as bring awareness and understanding to potentially sensitive issues.

“Another part of the reason why [we’re] doing it … is so that we can all have these types of conversations that help us as people, just understanding the viewpoints of someone that we don’t usually encounter,” Delva said. “One of the things that is going to really help us overall is talking to each other and hearing more about each other’s experiences, because then there’s more understanding that can take place and so much more learning and growth.”

While it covers heavy material, the first episode is infused with laughter.

Going forward, the podcast will continue to take a lighter stance on hard issues, according to Delva.

“We’re also both pretty comical guys,” Joseph said. “A big part of our podcast is keeping it lighthearted, comical. We’re talking about serious topics but at the end of the day I feel like having a lighthearted aspect really adds a lot.”

Joseph and Delva hope their podcast will help stimulate deep, intellectual conversation on Tufts’ campus going forward, introducing listeners to conversations to which they might not normally be exposed, according to Delva.

“Especially for our first two podcasts, where it’s entirely people of color [speaking], there was one white person [speaking] … those are spaces not everyone would be able to go into openly,” Joseph said. “That’s a big goal of our podcast too — to expose people to diversity on campus, different types of people.”

Joseph and Delva said they also thought about issues of censorship before publishing their podcast. Delva explained that they had been debating whether to release the podcast through Tufts Podcast Network or Tufts’ radio station, WMFO. “We … [realized] we would be limited [in both],” Delva said. “If we go on WMFO we can’t swear or anything, so people are automatically policing themselves in the conversation. Also, we don’t know how that would limit us to broadening it past Tufts.”

Joseph said he and Delva aim to draw listeners not only from Tufts, but also from surrounding communities and universities.

“I want this to blow up,” Joseph said. “I think this has the potential to be really big.

I would love to see this go beyond the Tufts campus and slowly spread.”

The number of listeners they reach, however, is not the most important component of this new endeavor, according to Joseph.

“Our ultimate goal is not to become famous, but to get people thinking about the world,” Joseph said. “That’s my goal, just to change the way people see things and hopefully … encourage people to engage with others in a more civil way as well.”

According to Joseph, there will be new episodes on social and political issues every Thursday.

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BEYOND GLASS WALLS

continued from page 1 explained. “After the fish stopped trying, they removed the wall that was there and it was free to roam wherever it wanted. But the goldfish was conditioned to believe that it couldn’t make it to the other side no matter what it tried to do, so it just didn’t.

I feel like that kind of just spoke to us in a larger sense.”

The name “Beyond Glass Walls” served as a jumping-off point for the focus of the podcast, according to Joseph, who related the wall in the goldfish’s tank to the invisible barriers between people.

“The wall is the barrier that divides us, a transparent wall,” Joseph said. “We want to go beyond the wall, move those transparent barriers.”

The first episode focuses on how race impacts social interactions and the social climate at Tufts, according to Delva. The episode also touches on privilege, gender and broader social justice issues, according to podcast guest Phyllis Njoroge, a junior. The conversation dives into sensitive material at times as Joseph, Delva and Njoroge contemplate differing opinions on race relations.

Ultimately, the podcast is meant to inspire deep thinking and personal reflection among both participants and listeners by openly exploring controversial viewpoints, according to Joseph and Delva.

Njoroge emphasized the subjectivity of the opinions she expresses in the episode and of opinions in general.

“I was shocked when they published the podcast all over social media and I was really concerned about how people would perceive me after listening,” Njoroge told the Daily in an email. “So I decided to re-listen to it myself and I decided that I can’t be afraid of being wrong … I am never convinced that anything that I hold in my mind or release into the world is right. I embrace being wrong because I know our reality is shaped by our experiences.”

The second episode, which has already been recorded but not yet uploaded, will focus on the relationship between students and their parents, and parents’ expectations of their children, according to Joseph.

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Friday, February 16, 2018 | News | THE TUFTS DAILY

Fletcher publication EconoFact celebrates developments one year after launch ECONOFACT

continued from page 1 “When I was [working at the U.S. Treasury], mostly what I did was write these short memos … about policy that would go to the Under Secretary for International Affairs and to the Secretary and sometimes to the President,” Klein said. “I was writing for people who did not have a degree in economics, but were interested in policy.”

Klein said his work at the Treasury inspired the idea for EconoFact, and he decided to reach out to friends of his who were economists to help him with the project.

“What I wanted was for professors who had spent their entire careers studying important economic policy issues to have a way to present to the public, to journalists, to politicians and their staff, what we have learned from economic analysis and what we know from statistics,” Klein said.

Klein approached the Director of The Edward R. Murrow Center for a Digital World at The Fletcher School and Edward R. Murrow Visiting Professor of Public Diplomacy Edward Schumacher-Matos about the concerns he and fellow economists had.

“Their great fear was that economic and social policy was going awry, and they wanted to know what they could do about it, how could they influence the public debate. So I said I had an idea, and that idea was EconoFact,” SchumacherMatos said.

Schumacher-Matos explained that he had conducted research on how audiences react to articles based on their biases, and concluded that it was important to use a fact-first formula when designing EconoFact.

“We were at a moment in time where we had lots of opinions being flung all over the place, but what was missing was just some sober grounding in facts,” Schumacher-Matos said. “The country has become so polarized that the moment most readers smell something opposed to their bias, they won’t read it.”

According to Klein, each memo follows the same basic structure.

“We start by declaring what the issue is and then include a series of bullet

points that lay out statistics or historical experience or basic economic analysis in a way that makes it very accessible for a non-expert. Only at the end does the author offer a conclusion that might reflect views of the way things should be,” Klein said.

Klein explained that EconoFact relies on a team of economists that are a part of the EconoFact Network to contribute memos for publication on the website, but EconoFact also accepts submissions from economists outside the network.

“We have people who we approach because we know they’re experts in a certain area. Increasingly, as we have built up our brand and become better known, we get people who approach us with ideas for memos,” Klein said.

EconoFact publishes memos on a variety of topics, including immigration, charter schools, the social safety net, international trade, finance and macroeconomics, according to Klein.

“Economists have things to say about all of these issues. Like charter schools, there’s a lot of economic analysis of charter schools, of immigration. Economics is a very broad area where we use the tools of economics and statistical analysis for a really wide range of things,” Klein said.

Miriam Wasserman (F ’97), managing editor of EconoFact, said she tries to ensure that the memos break down topics in a way that is accessible to a broad audience.

“I try to make sure that the concepts are clear for a public that is interested and intelligent but doesn’t have a PhD in economics, necessarily. I try to make them as jargon-free as I can, and I also play a role in trying to make sure that the content is nonpartisan,” Wasserman said.

According to Wasserman, part of the value of EconoFact is its ability to incorporate new perspectives into the debate on an issue.

“Sometimes there’s … an echo chamber, and sometimes we can bring in new voices that are looking at things from a different perspective that can help expand the debate and add … depth to the coverage,” Wasserman said.

Kailash Prasad, who is in charge of data visualization and audience engagement,

spoke about how EconoFact has grown since its launch in January 2017.

“When we started off, we had about six memos and 20 economists, and a couple of weeks ago we published our 100th memo and now we have around 70 economists in the network,” Prasad said.

Schumacher-Matos spoke of EconoFact’s efforts to appear in the news media on a regular basis.

“We have a regular working thing with them where they’re citing our stuff, publishing our memos in full when they’re linked to something in the news. We’ve been talking to some of the big mainstream news media to see if we can come up with a distribution deal,” SchumacherMatos said.

Prasad discussed other ways in which EconoFact is trying to grow its audience, from adding visual elements like interactive charts and graphs to possibly starting a podcast and sponsoring events.

“We’re limited to about three memos a week, even if we have a lot of people who want to contribute, so that’s why branching out into events and podcasts is good,” Prasad said.

According to Klein, EconoFact has partnered with Macmillan Publishers to publish EconoFact memos in textbooks, allowing students to connect what they are learning to current events.

EconoFact has also created a newsletter that is sent out every time a new memo is published, and also when there are relevant events coming up where EconoFact’s memos might be useful, Klein noted.

“We sent out a newsletter in anticipation of the President’s State of the Union … [that presented] memos from our archive and topics that are likely to be covered in the State of the Union,” Klein said.

Klein said that ultimately, EconoFact’s goal is to be a fair arbiter in the debate on policy issues amidst politicians who are often trying to score political points.

“The public discourse is not necessarily well informed by economic statistics or analysis. We’re trying to inform the public so people make better informed choices and understand the difference between what politicians say and what is actually the truth of these matters,” Klein said.

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Hayato Miyajima Jumbo Exchange

Good choice?

O

ne of the questions people ask me a lot is “How do you like Tufts?” Usually, I just answer “I love it!” without a second thought.

Today, I am going to ask myself the same question and think about it more deeply, looking back to the days that I have spent here for the last five months.

To be perfectly honest, I am really happy with Tufts as a place for me to study abroad at. I feel that I have learned a lot of things throughout the last semester. This semester, I have been able to take courses that I enjoy as well. That is not only because of the Tufts faculty, but also because of the highly motivated students here.

Having a keen interest in their academics, Tufts students study hard both inside and outside of class. Therefore, they are well familiar with what they do. Compared to my peers back home in Japan, I feel that students here dedicate much more time to schoolwork and studying in general. This is one of the biggest cultural shocks that I have encountered since my arrival in the States and is something that I could not have experienced unless I went abroad. Being in this environment keeps pushing me to work hard, which I really appreciate.

Tufts is also a good place to study my major, international relations (IR).

It is always interesting to learn about IR from a Western or American perspective and to compare that to what I have studied in Japan. It is not only simply fun, but also extremely helpful to see an issue from different angles, which gives me a broader perspective and a more comprehensive understanding of my academic area.

This may sound obvious, but it is exciting to live and study with students of different backgrounds and identities, including race, religion and so forth.

Although Japan has several minority ethnic groups, it is a homogeneous society for the most part. In Japan, most of the population are ethnic Japanese, who generally speak only Japanese and are not too religious. Not surprisingly, I used to study with Japanese students and was taught mostly by Japanese professors. I hear the same kind of stories from my peers on exchange in other parts of the world as well.

As many people criticize, there is a lot to be desired at Tufts when it comes to diversity on campus, but it has a significant number of international students. Tufts students have the opportunity to mingle with students coming from outside of the States.

Plus, one of the best parts of studying in a city like Boston is that people here are welcoming and tolerant of other cultures. I have not been made to feel uncomfortable by others.

Finally, the social life here has also been enjoyable. Plenty of events happen on and around campus. Even though I mentioned last week the lack of organizations for exchange students, there are actually many clubs and activities that one can join. I am going to talk more about that next week — stay tuned.

Hayato Miyajima is an exchange student from Japan majoring in international relations. Hayato can be reached at Hayato.

Miyajima@tufts.edu.

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THE TUFTS DAILY | ADVERTISEMENT | Friday, February 16, 2018

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Friday, February 16, 2018

WEEKENDER

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Tufts’ production of ‘Le Nozze di Figaro’ adds 1920s aesthetic to the 18th-century opera This weekend, the Tufts Opera Ensemble is tackling Mozart’s famous opera “Le Nozze Di Figaro” (1786).

Directors Carol Mastrodomenico and Thomas Stumpf, faculty members of the music department, have put a twist on the well-known classical opera, depicting it in a colorful rendition of 1920s Spain instead of the original 18th-century setting.

The Opera Ensemble will also perform alongside the Tufts Chamber Orchestra, a 29-student ensemble directed by John Page, director of orchestral activities at Tufts, according to Mastrodomenico.

According to Stephanie Evans, one of the actors playing the lead role of Susanna, this particular production is an ambitious undertaking.

“Usually we perform scenes or oneact operas during the semesters, but this is the first time in about eight years that we’ve done a full opera,” she said. “[We’ve done] nothing of this scope ever really before.”

According to Evans, a senior, the Opera Ensemble has been working on this production since September. In addition to staging the entirety of the 600-page score, the Ensemble will also be performing the work in its original Italian. If you’re going to see it this weekend, fear not — there will be English supertitles projected above the show, so it will be easy to understand.

“The dialogue is going to be like watching a foreign movie with subtitles,” said sophomore Chloe Malouf, one of the actors playing Cherubino. “It’s the same thing. You’ll be able to follow it very easily.”

Mastrodomenico emphasized the fact that the Opera Ensemble is collaborating with the Chamber Orchestra.

“It is such a rare opportunity to sing with orchestra,” Mastrodomenico told the Daily in an email. “The collaborations with the orchestra, the academic Music faculty and the Theater Department are [a] perk to doing a project like this.”

The production is also double-cast, meaning that there is a different cast in the Thursday and Saturday shows from the Friday and Sunday shows. This arrangement gives more students the opportunity to perform.

“Tufts has so much talent that, at least for some of the female roles, there were more people than named roles,” Evans said. “It gives people more opportunities to play such a big role, which is exciting, because some people might not have gotten to do it otherwise.”

“Le Nozze di Figaro” is an opera buffa, meaning that its story is comic.

Mozart based his opera on the historically controversial play “Le Mariage de Figaro” (1778) by Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, which was originally banned by Emperor Joseph II for its political content. However, after the poet and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte removed the controversial material while translating the play to the Italian libretto (the script of an opera), Joseph II allowed Mozart to compose the accompanying music.

The result is a boisterous, comic masterpiece filled with romance, deception and drama that critiques social class

by Stephanie Hoechst Contributing Writer

COURTESY TUFTS OPERA ENSEMBLE

A promotional poster for the Tufts Opera Ensemble’s rendition of ‘Le Nozze Di Figaro.’ amidst its more humorous moments.

The story features Figaro and Susanna, two engaged servants working under Count Almaviva and Countess Rosina.

Disguises and trickery abound as the couple, along with other members of the count’s household, create an elaborate plot against the count after learning of his advances toward Susanna. “[The show is] hilarious,” said Nathalie Andrade, a senior playing the countess on Thursday and Saturday. “It’s as ridiculous as a Spanish soap opera.”

Malouf said that while she loves the history of the opera, its relevance continues to impress her as well.

“This show has so much history behind it,” she explained. “That’s why I love opera … because you’re literally looking into the reality TV show of the 1700s, yet it applies. Yet it’s normal.

And it connects us to people who lived hundreds of years ago. They have the exact same problems as us. They had … old guys hitting on your girlfriend.

And they had jealousy and schemes and lovesick teenage boys like me. It’s all the same.”

Though the original opera took place in 18th-century Spain, Mastrodomenico decided to move this production’s setting to the 1920s.

“I chose the ’20s as a concept because it worked well in still defining the characters,” Mastrodomenico said. “Figaro and Susanna are beloved servants, and after shows like “Downton Abbey” (2010–2015), ’20s servants uniforms are easily identified and relatable.”

“I also liked the idea of borrowing from the gangster look to costume the count, who acts more like a gangster or villain then a gentleman,” she added. “This also makes Figaro, of the servant class, look more like a gentleman than his master, and that was one of the main ideas behind Mozart’s choosing the Beaumarchais play Figaro is based on.”

In addition to the opera’s applicability to this era, the switch also gave Mastrodomenico the opportunity to define a colorful aesthetic for the show.

“She’s using only colors that were shown through cubism in Spain in the 1920s,” Malouf said. “In the outfits, not

only do you have the 1928 style, but you also have really strong orange and yellow and reds and purples.”

Mastrodomenico explained that she wanted to reinforce the opera’s Spanish setting, especially because the words are in Italian.

“When I spoke with Anna Britton, our set designer,” she said, “I showed her the works of cubist painters Joan Miró and of course Picasso, but also surrealist painter Dalí, for their color and boldness. I also chose pictures of Moorish architecture to show Anna, and she came up with the brilliant arches.”

These influences are immediately apparent on the set. As Mastrodomenico mentioned, the Moorish-inspired arches are the focal point of the colorful scenery, and many bright flowers and props reflect the lighthearted spirit of Mozart’s opera.

While the project is ambitious, and some members have more experience with opera, the Opera Ensemble includes students from a wide variety of majors, many of whom are new to opera or even singing.

“We have a wide range of people in the Figaro cast,” Mastrodomenico said.

“Our Figaro, John Arnold, is an engineer, one of the countesses is a film and media studies major, our count is a biochemistry major who is planning to take the MCAT in March. Our chorus is made up of some freshmen and some that are new to singing. So it is either remarkable or insane that we took on this project. I like to think of it as remarkable.”

The ensemble has been working on this production for the past five months, and Evans, Malouf and Mastrodomenico all noted how much they have enjoyed getting to work with this group.

“I love everyone,” Malouf said.

“Everyone in the ensemble is amazing. I love working with Carol, Stephanie. I love working with everyone in opera ensemble. They’re all so talented and so kind.”

Mastrodomenico also commented on how impressed she was that the students were able to learn and practice so much material.

“Watching the students get handed a 600-page score in September and seeing them go from ‘This is impossible’ to ‘This is unbelievable, we did this,’ is the best part,” she said.

Malouf urged everyone to attend the performance, the first of which was just last night.

“This specific opera is probably the best one,” Malouf said. “Like, ever. It is such an amazing opera, and the fact that we’re having it at this school and that students are performing it is such an incredible thing … I really think everyone should come see the show. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I don’t know when the next time we’ll be able to do a show like this is … but this is the one.”

“Le Nozze de Figaro” opened last night in Distler Performance Hall in the Granoff Music Center. The remaining performances are tonight, Feb. 16 and Feb. 17 at 8 p.m. and Feb. 18 at 3 p.m., in the same location. Tickets are available at $10 for students and seniors and at $15 for general admission at the Granoff Music Center Box Office.

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THE TUFTS DAILY | Comics | Friday, February 16, 2018

Comics

LATE NIGHT AT THE DAILY Maria: “Let’s put knives on our feet.”

Comics

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Difficulty Level: Realizing that Japan and Korea have a complicated historical relationship that Generated by http://www.opensky.ca/sudoku on Mon Feb 12 01:41:18 2018 GMT. Enjoy! probably shouldn’t be simplified on national TV.

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Jumbos to face familiar foes in quests for conference titles BASKETBALL PREVIEW

continued from back Men’s Basketball The Tufts men’s team finished its season with a win against Trinity, as well, pulling out a 76–71 triumph. This secured the Jumbos’ regular-season record of 17–7, with a 6–4 NESCAC record to boot. Tufts’ victory also locked up the sixth seed in the conference tournament, setting up a matchup with third-seeded Hamilton (21– 3, 7–3 NESCAC) on Saturday. Since the Jumbos are the lower seed, they will make the trek to Clinton, N.Y. The Jumbos played the Continentals only two weeks ago, losing 74–57 at home.

A big second half from Hamilton cost Tufts the game, as the team couldn’t keep

up with the visitors’ 45-point barrage in the latter period. The Jumbos learned a lot from the game, though, and hope to bring this knowledge to the matchup this weekend.

“We’ve definitely been watching film of that game and critiquing ourselves of what we think we could’ve done better, but also things that we did well,” sophomore guard Eric Savage said. “We shot a really low percentage in that game, so I think if we can just put the ball in the basket, we’ll be in great shape to win this game.”

With a win against Hamilton, Tufts would advance to the conference semifinals the following weekend. Even though the team is assured of being on the road throughout the tournament, the

Jumbos may favor that situation: Tufts is 9–3 on the road this year.

“It’s sad for our seniors that they’ve probably played the last home game of their career,” Savage said. “But I’ve talked with some of the guys, and I think, personally, that we don’t really like home games. We like being away, we like feeling like we’re the underdogs — it kind of adds a chip to our shoulder.”

Despite their middling position in the NESCAC standings, the Jumbos believe they can beat anyone — a sentiment backed up by the fact that the team has impressive wins over the top two seeds in the conference: Amherst (60–56 on Feb. 2) and Williams (69–63 on Jan. 12). The key for the Jumbos will be stringing together three consistent games.

The next two weeks will be crucial for the team’s NCAA tournament résumé. As it sits, Tufts may be a bubble team given its current record. A deep NESCAC run would certainly give the Jumbos some help on that front, and a conference title would give them an automatic bid to the NCAA Div. III Tournament.

“Even though we’re going to take it one game at a time … in the back of your mind you’re like, ‘look, if we do lose, the implication is that our season is likely ending,’” Savage said.

The Jumbos have their work cut out for them on both the men’s and the women’s sides, but they are ready to take on the postseason. Both teams will tip off the first round of the NESCAC tournament at 3 p.m. on Saturday.

ICE HOCKEY

RAY BERNOFF / THE TUFTS DAILY

Senior forward Brian Brown possesses the puck in a game against Amherst at the Malden Forum on Feb. 10, 2017.

Jumbos to make postseason push in final weekend of NESCAC play

by Julia Atkins Staff Writer

The Tufts ice hockey team takes on Bowdoin and Colby this weekend in backto-back home games to top off its 2017–18 regular season. With Tufts currently ninth in the NESCAC standings, the team needs to win both games this weekend to have a chance to steal eighth place and continue on to the conference tournament.

Friday night’s game against Bowdoin figures to be a competitive one: Bowdoin

currently holds the eighth position in the NESCAC with an overall record of 8­ –14 (5–11 in conference). After falling to the Polar Bears, 3–0, in December, the Jumbos are ready for revenge.

“Bowdoin is a skilled team,” senior Nick Flanagan said. “They move the puck well and bring great competition, but we’re ready to take them on again and show how much we’ve improved as a team.”

There are a few Polar Bear players to watch on Friday. Junior forward Cody Todesco has been heating up, with four of

his five goals coming in his last six games.

Todesco also leads Bowdoin in assists, with 10. Additionally, first-year defenseman and forward Bradley Ingersoll has five goals and eight assists on the season.

For Friday night’s game, the Jumbos will partner with Green Dot — a bystander intervention program that seeks to raise awareness about sexual harassment, misconduct and assault — with an eye toward changing campus culture and giving students and faculty an active role in supporting survivors.

The following day, Tufts will compete in its last regular season game against Colby at 4 p.m. at Valley Forum in Malden. Colby is currently sixth in the NESCAC standings with an overall record of 11–10–1 (8–7–1 in conference). The Jumbos previously lost to the Mules, 7–3, on Dec. 9, so they will have another chance at redemption on their home ice.

“Last time around, the score did not reflect the work we put in and the skill our team has,” sophomore defenseman Cooper Stahl said. “Colby is a good team.

They shoot the puck constantly and bring aggression. It’s going to be a battle, but we’re ready.”

The two players to look out for on the Mules are junior forward Nick O’Connor (10 goals and nine assists) and senior forward Cam MacDonald (11 goals, eight assists). MacDonald scored four goals against the Jumbos in the teams’ previous matchup and is an aggressive competitor. Colby senior goalie Sean Lawrence has also had an impressive season so far, with 553 saves, and definitely won’t make things easy for the hosts on Saturday.

As for the Jumbos, senior forward Brian Brown is a constant threat on the ice and has led the team in both goals (eight) and assists (six) this season. Sophomore forward Tyler Scroggins (six goals, six assists) has been heating up — the Allen, Texas native had a seven-game point streak in January — and can be expected to provide a strong presence to the Tufts attack this weekend. Senior goalie and co-captain Nik Nugnes has also had an outstanding season, with 465 total saves and two shutouts.

“This is the most important weekend of our season right here,” Flanagan said.

“Hopefully, all the hard work, dedication and teamwork we have built this season comes together, and we secure a spot in the playoffs.”

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Sports

Friday, February 16, 2018

BASKETBALL PREVIEW

Tufts prepares for conference tournament

by Ryan Eggers

Assistant Sports Editor

EVAN SAYLES / THE TUFTS DAILY

Tufts senior guard and co-captain Vincent Pace eyes the hoop in a game against Trinity on Feb. 11.

Women’s Basketball After both teams ended their regular season action with wins, the men’s and women’s teams embark on their postseason journeys this weekend with the commencement of the NESCAC tournament.

The women’s team wrapped up its regular season at Trinity last week, winning 59–40. The victory pushed the Jumbos’ record to 21–3 on the season, with an 8–2 record in the NESCAC. That resume has earned them the third seed in the conference tournament, which nets them home-court advantage in the first round.

That first round matchup will be against a Conn. College team that put up an overall record of 15–8 and a 4–6 showing in the NESCAC. Earlier in the season, the Jumbos played an excellent game against the Camels at home, winning 75–54. Despite that result, Tufts isn’t looking past Saturday’s game.

“Playoff time is playoff time,” senior guard and co-captain Lauren Dillon said.

“We know that every team is fighting for a chance to keep playing, and we know especially with this Conn. College team that their season is over if they lose. So we know the seniors are going to be fighting for their lives, along with the rest of the team.”

Should the Jumbos win on Saturday, they’ll earn a spot in the following week-

end’s conference semifinals, which will be hosted by the highest remaining seed. The NESCAC championship game will take place the next day.

For the third year in a row, it appears that Amherst will be the team’s biggest obstacle in the eight-team field. The Mammoths have won back-to-back NESCAC titles, beating the Jumbos in nail-biters in both games. After a 41–37 loss last year, Tufts has a little extra motivation to deny Amherst’s quest for a threepeat. The Mammoths defeated the Jumbos in the NCAA title game last year, as well, no doubt adding more fuel to the fire.

“Both of those games have left a bad taste in our mouths,” Dillon said. “It’s a new season, and obviously that’s in the back of our minds, but for right now, we’re just focused on Saturday. But if it comes to [playing Amherst again], then we’re definitely going to have a lot of motivation.”

It won’t be easy, as Amherst hasn’t lost a game in two years, maintaining a perfect record (33–0) during its championship run last year and having yet to drop a game this season. The Jumbos came close to victory during the teams’ regular-season matchup on Feb. 2, losing 50–43 on the road. As Tufts is the No. 3 seed and Amherst is the No. 1 seed, the soonest the two foes could meet is in the conference championship game. see BASKETBALL PREVIEW, page 7

MEN'S SQUASH

Tufts suffers defeat to MIT, bounces back to dismantle BU

by Arlo Moore-Bloom Assistant Sports Editor

The No. 28 Tufts men’s squash team (8–11) lost to No. 22 MIT, 8–1, on Feb. 8 before rebounding to defeat No. 42 Boston University, 9–0, on Saturday. The matchup on Saturday wrapped up the Jumbos’ 2017–18 regular season.

The match against Boston University was one of Tufts’ easier competitions of the season, which provided an opportunity for players, who are typically outside of the regular top nine, to compete. It was also a match for the team’s seniors, who won’t be competing in the upcoming College Squash Association (CSA) Team Nationals, to end their Tufts careers on a high note. Junior co-captain Aidan Porges spoke about the expectations for Saturday’s match.

“BU isn’t that strong of a program,” Porges said. “We came out and played well, but we were always fairly confident that we were going to win. We still like to play local teams, so that’s why we play them.”

First-year Matt Fiedler was one of the Jumbos who hasn’t gotten many opportunities to play against the team’s stiffer competition. Against BU, however, the New Haven, Conn. native shined, crushing his opponent in straight sets: 11–3, 11–2, 11–2. Fiedler was understandably pleased with his performance.

“Originally, [BU] were only going to line up six guys, but then they tacked on a seventh, so I played,” Fiedler said. “It was only seniors who were supposed to play.

The kid I played was a solid player, but I was able to pull out a win.”

Tufts’ match against MIT (15–5) on Feb. 8 had a much different result. Under the

leadership of coach Thierry Lincou, who was the No. 1 men’s squash player in the world from 2004–05, the Engineers have become one of best squash programs in the Boston area.

Tufts struggled immensely against its strong opposition, as first-year Aman Nivani was the only player to pick up a win. Nivani’s opponent, MIT junior Justin Restivo, had one of the most unique styles that Porges has ever seen.

“He hit shots that people don’t even know exist — behind-the-back, throughthe-legs — things that squash players don’t normally do,” Porges said. “Navani kept his head up and stayed focused, [while] playing through this weird squash.

He was eventually able to pull it out.”

Navani was pleased with his performance, especially since it came against such a formidable opponent from MIT. “The first few games, I tried to understand what [Restivo] was doing,” Navani said. “He kept on going for kill shots, but once I caught on, I learned to push higher up onto the court. He made some errors and I capitalized on them.”

Tufts coach Joe Raho explained how the one-sided scoreline against MIT wasn’t necessarily indicative of how close the match was. Three individual matchups lasted the full five sets, with MIT winning two of them.

“I kind of thought the MIT guys would come in and beat us quite badly, but it was really tight,” Raho said. “The score doesn’t reflect it that much, but the matches were a lot more competitive than they appear.

Our guys were right in it.”

Playing in the fourth position, Porges came close to victory, only to fall short

RAY BERNOFF / THE TUFTS DAILY

Junior Brett Raskopf crouches to hit the ball in a match against Dickinson at Harvard’s Murr Center on Jan 20, 2017. in the fourth set, eventually losing 11–8, 11–5, 8–11, 11–9. The Philadelphia native was ultimately disappointed with the result, knowing that he was neck-andneck with his opponent almost all the way through.

“I was a bit frustrated with how I played,” Porges said. “My opponent was really good. It’s hard to always go out there and play your best — it’s the sort of thing you have to learn to fight through. He won that day, but I’d definitely like to play him again next year.”

With CSA Team Nationals scheduled for Feb. 23–25, these matches served to prepare the Jumbos for what will undoubtedly be an exciting and important weekend. According to Raho, Tufts’ recent competitions have helped it prepare in several ways, none more than the matchup with MIT, which conditioned the team to raise its level.

“You have one [match] where you get beat up really bad and you’re playing someone who’s always ahead of you, and you see that’s what you’re trying to get toward,” Raho said. “There were a bunch of super close and contested battles. These matches … prepare you for that super high pressure environment at Nationals.”

In the matchup with BU, on the other hand, the main focus wasn’t necessarily on winning. Instead, it primarily helped the Jumbos develop the aspects of their games that need work, specifically in an in-game environment.

“It’s good when you’re slightly better than your opponent,” Raho said. “You can build up some confidence and start working on some things. You’re still in the match scenario, but you’re working on growing your game.”