The Centennial Conference tournament officially begins on April 29. But as far as coach Jeff Shirk is concerned, Washington College has been in playoff mode for more than a week.
At 4-2 in the league and with a one-game lead on Dickinson for the fourth and final berth in the Centennial tournament, the Shoremen (5-8 overall) know wins at Swarthmore (6-6 overall and 1-5 conference) on Wednesday and No. 2 Gettysburg (13-0, 6-0) on Saturday will cement their road to the postseason. They can get some assistance if the Red Devils (5-8, 3-3) fall to either Muhlenberg (3-9, 0-7) or Franklin & Marshall (7-7, 4-2), but Shirk said the team can't afford to rely on others.
"I guess my thought process is if we don't win on Wednesday, we really hurt ourselves with trying to get in," he said Monday morning. "I've got it written down here with all of the different scenarios, but if you start thinking about different scenarios and where people are, I think you lose a little focus on the task at hand. If we win, we're fine.
"I think the approach with the guys and ourselves is, the Centennial playoffs have already started, and if we're able to improve and take care of what we need to take care of, then we don't have to worry about what the other teams are doing. That's the focus."
Washington College is mired in a three-game losing streak capped by Saturday's 23-5 thumping by No. 10 Salisbury (13-4). Shirk conceded that the skid is alarming.
"There's a lot of things we need to improve upon, but we're just going to approach it in that we have to get the guys ready for Swarthmore, and we've got to find a way to score some more goals and prevent goals," he said. "We're just working on getting better. We have a lot of young guys, a lot of freshmen, a lot of sophomores, a lot of new guys that have been in the past couple of games because of injuries and sickness. So there's definitely a level of concern, but we're going to stick with it and get ready to go."
Shirk isn't shy about calling Wednesday's game at Swarthmore a must-win situation. That would seem to ramp up the pressure on a Washington College program that captured the 2014 tournament championship and advanced to the NCAA tournament semifinals, but Shirk said the players have carried the weight of expectations all spring.
"I think they've had pressure on them all year," he said. "Maybe it'll turn out to be a good thing. Maybe it will help them to get more motivated and they will treat it like a playoff game. So if we're able to go out and win when we know we have to go out and win, maybe that will help us when we actually get into the Centennial playoffs. So hopefully, it's a good learning moment for the guys to get ready as we progress."