By Justin Feil

The Princeton University women’s lacrosse team will carry a range of emotions into its season opener at Virginia this Sunday.

The Tigers are predictably excited. They were selected unanimously as the Ivy League favorite in the preseason media poll and are currently ranked 16th in the Inside Lacrosse national poll. There’s also a degree of uncertainty, especially as they head into a challenging non-conference schedule. Princeton has not played a game since March 8, 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic cost them the rest of that season after a 3-2 start, and Princeton did not play in the 2021 season due to ongoing COVID-19 concerns.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Princeton head coach Chris Sailer, who has announced that this spring will be her final year at the helm, capping a 36-year run that has seen her lead the Tigers to three NCAA titles and make the U.S. Lacrosse National Hall of Fame.

Princeton has five senior leaders – led by national player of the year Tewaaraton Award Watch List nominees Kyla Sears and Marge Donovan – that were among the 19 players who took a leave of absence from school last year to preserve this year’s eligibility. Sears is among the top attackers in the country, while Donovan is part of one of the most experienced defenses in the country with fellow defenders Mary Murphy and Olivia Pugh and goalie Sam Fish.

“They have been such a heart of the team,” said Sailer. “They’re all basically four-year starters and provide us with a core and great leadership.”

With so much of the rest of the team lacking game experience, the seniors will be key to bringing along the less experienced players. Juniors Shannon Berry and Maria Pansini are the next most experienced players, but even Pansini had just nine games before she was injured freshman year. This year’s sophomores and freshmen have yet to play a college game for the Tigers.

“We are really young and that’s exciting,” said Sailer. “We think we have a lot of good young talent. It’s been awesome to see how our young kids are developing and the upperclassmen, whether they’ve played big roles on the team or not in the past, have been really good leaders and helping the transition for the younger kids and showing them what it means to be a part of the program and what’s required in terms of commitment and work ethic and being a great teammate. I give all that credit to the upperclassmen who have done a great job.”

The experienced players on the defense will be vital early on as Princeton leans on its leadership. The defense can be a weapon for the Tigers.

“I think our D has been a real strength for us,” said Sailer. “I think most people know our primary defensive system and our goal is to get a little more pressure and be really on the ball defensively and increase our communication. We have a lot of young kids through the midfield and defense is always a challenge for the young middies because it’s something they’re not taught to the extent that you get taught it in college. I think getting those kids as ready as they can be on top of their game is important.”

At the other end of the field, Princeton will try to utilize its speed to create scoring chances and put opponents on their heels. The Tigers have a bevy of scoring options that they will employ around Sears. Sears has been on the Tewaaraton Watch List four years, and twice has been named All-America.

“We have some pretty incredible scorers and kids who can feed,” said Sailer of Sears who has 207 points in her Tiger career on 139 goals and 68 assists.

“We have a lot of good young talent and explosive kids and some crafty kids. Clearly Kyla is the headliner, but she’s going to have a nice cast around here. I think we’re going to showcase a lot of talent on that end. Getting them to understand time and situations and what’s important now when you have so many freshmen and sophomores in that lineup who haven’t played before or even juniors who haven’t played before for injury reasons and losing most all of their sophomore year, there is an adjustment when you get to game time. We think we have a lot of potential.”

Princeton took advantage of its return to campus and a busier fall ball to try to play catch-up and practice those situations. It helped that the Ivy League allowed more fall practice time than usual, and Princeton had the numbers to take advantage of their opportunities.

“We have 33 on the roster, which is a few more than we would normally have,” said Sailer. “But the larger numbers allow us to do more full-field situations more often. You inevitably have kids out of practice for injuries at different times in a Division I program, but the numbers that we have allow us to scrimmage full-field. That’s been helpful to be able to have intrasquad games in addition to what we were able to do in the fall.”

The fall gave the Tigers a strong starting point for this spring, and Sailer said that many from the team came back early in January to practice on their own. They’ve been counting down the days until they open the season. They will play a Virginia team that already will have three games behind them when Princeton visits.

“Certainly they will be a little more battle-tested than we are,” said Sailer of the 10th-ranked Cavaliers, who are off to a 2-0 start. “We’re just going to take the field with such enthusiasm and be so excited to get out there and compete. That’s really what we’re looking for.”

Princeton lost to Virginia, 12-10, in 2020 before the season was cut short. The Tigers have traditionally played UVA in their second game of the season, but haven’t beaten the Cavaliers since 2017.

“Beating UVA is something I know our seniors in particular have at the top of their list,” said Sailer. “This has been circled for them. This group hasn’t beaten UVA. We’ve always played them really early and traditionally we’ve been a team that might not be ready right away for that top 10 game in our first game, but we get better as the season goes along and we get more competition in. I know what this game means to this group and we’re going to go after it hard.”

Princeton will make its home debut on February 26 against Temple, another top-25 team. The Tigers also face such formidable out-of-conference teams USC, Penn State, Loyola, Stony Brook, and Maryland.

“We’ve never shied away from playing tough teams; we might not have the 13-2 record all the time but we get battle-tested,” said Sailer. “That’s why we tend to win our share of games when it gets to Ivy tournament and NCAA tournament time. We want to compete with the best and I think our schedule is definitely challenging. There are a lot of great teams in there. We get excited. Those are the games that you really look forward to playing and when you can really test yourself against really high level competition. It’s exciting for our team and we love that challenge.”

The non-conference challenge is designed to set up the Tigers for the Ivy season and postseason. Princeton will host Cornell in their Ivy opener March 5. Princeton has won the last six Ivy regular season championships and the last three Ivy Tournament titles. To win another championship and make any run in the NCAA tournament in Sailer’s final season will depend on amount of growth from the Tigers.

“The energy is running high and we’re getting better,” said Sailer. “It’s been encouraging and fun and we’re excited for the year.”