STICKING OUT: Princeton University field hockey player Beth Yeager, right, dribbles the ball in a game earlier this season. Last Sunday, junior star Yeager picked up an assist in a losing cause as Princeton fell 2-1 to Harvard in overtime in the Ivy League Tournament final. Yeager, a U.S. Olympian who was named the Ivy Offensive Player of the Year this fall, will look to keep producing as the Tigers, now 13-5, start play in the NCAA tournament where they are an at-large selection and will face Boston College (14-6) in a first round contest on November 15 at Saint Joseph’s. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

By Justin Feil

The last time Beth Yeager and the Princeton University field hockey team lost, they bounced back with seven straight wins.

The Tigers would settle for four straight this time in the wake of being awarded an at-large berth to the NCAA tournament hours after falling to Harvard, 2-1, in the Ivy League Tournament final in overtime Sunday. When Harvard scored with less than three minutes to play in regulation, Princeton responded with Yeager’s corner smash redirected in by Ella Cashman with 59 seconds left to force overtime. The Crimson scored 4:11 into the OT to pull out the win.

“I think we’ve shown when we do face adversity, we respond very positively and we raise our game,” said Yeager, a junior forward. “We don’t go down and so I think for this team in particular that moment, and then the game as a whole I think will be really good for us going forward because they both push us to be more determined and have a bit more like composure in big moments.”

Princeton, now 13-5, will open the NCAA tournament against Boston College (14-6) on November 15 at Saint Joseph’s. Host and fourth-seeded Saint Joseph’s (17-3) will face Lafayette (14-6) in the pod’s first game of the day. The winners meet Sunday at noon in the quarterfinal round.

“It’s a pretty deep field this year, so I don’t think we really care one way or the other,” said Princeton coach Carla Tagliente. “We’re just happy to be in.”

Princeton is back in the NCAA tournament for the first time since Yeager’s sophomore year in 2022. Yeager took last year off from school to train to compete with the United States women’s field hockey team and competed for the U.S. at the 2024 Paris Olympics. As incredible as that year was, she’s been thrilled to be back in a Princeton uniform.

“It’s been amazing honestly,” said Yeager. “I think I really missed Princeton as a whole when I was away, certainly the team, but also just like the academic piece and the social aspects as well. I loved my year off, but I definitely missed Princeton field hockey specifically and missed being with the team. I think Princeton field hockey has a very unique culture and the college games are just so fun to play and there’s a lot of pride in them because you are representing your school.”

Yeager has had no difficulty fitting back in for the Tigers. And her international playing experience has been a bonus as she returned and adjusted to the college game.

“The biggest thing is just like the speed of play, things internationally just happen a lot quicker and you have less time to make decisions than you do in college field hockey,” said Yeager. “I think the other thing is internationally you have more time to prepare for games, even in a tournament. You’ve had like six weeks prior to the tournament starting to be able to prep, you know what teams you’re playing, and there’s also less teams generally. So a lot of girls have played teams multiple times and so you kind of know their style of play and the players and things like that. So you have the luxury of being able to prep more.”

The game itself feels no different to Yeager, who has represented the Tigers well in her return. Her assist Sunday added to her team- and Ivy-leading total of 41 points (15 goals and 11 assists), more than double all but one other player in the league (Brown’s Katie McCallum has 22). Yeager was named Ivy Offensive Player of the Year unanimously, the third time she’s won that award. And she was first-team All-Ivy League unanimously for the third time as well. Yeager, though, is back for the team accolades and so the Ivy tournament loss was a disappointment, and the NCAA berth is an opportunity.

“The thing that brings teams success in the tournament is their ability to seize the moment and recognize that this is all you have, like this game in front of you is the most important and you have to take every opportunity because it might be your last,” said Yeager. “The teams that do that and play without fear and play fluidly and they play to win, I think are the teams that ultimately become champions. So I do agree with Carla that this is like a good wake-up call for us because (Sunday) we had to face the tough feeling of our season potentially being over. And I think sitting with those feelings for a second kind of helps us understand how much we don’t want to feel that again.”

For about seven hours after their heartbreaking loss to Harvard in the fourth minute of overtime — after the Tigers had a chance to end it a minute earlier — Princeton was in limbo. Without the Ivy tournament’s automatic bid, they were at the mercy of the NCAA tournament selection committee.

“Everyone had a little bit of a different coping mechanism,” said Yeager. “For me, I kind of tried to forget about it. So I tried to study and just forget about field hockey and the fact that it existed for a little bit. But I think regardless what you did, regardless what everybody did, it was definitely a stressful and an emotional couple of hours.”

The Princeton coaches were following the results of UConn’s tight 1-0 win over upset-minded Temple in the Big East tournament championship that had UConn lost would have further shrunk the at-large spots. They crunched numbers to pass the time, but eventually had to put away their computers and hope that their late-season run was enough to show the committee they deserved a spot. When the brackets were announced, they were relieved to know they were in.

“We were on a nice run since the Syracuse loss,” said Tagliente. “I think it’s somewhat healthy to have a reset here and a little bit of a chance to rebound and react. Last night we talked about just doing that. The Syracuse game was a big wake-up call for us. I thought we put in a good stretch of games after that. I think we knocked off seven straight wins in a tough stretch of games.”

Tagliente is hoping that the Tigers can get back to playing the way they were through much of that stretch. Princeton was getting away from possessing the ball as much as they wanted to over the last few games, and their pressure hadn’t been as consistent as they aspire it to be.

Princeton was missing those components in part of their Ivy title game with Harvard, whom they beat, 2-1, in the regular season in overtime. When the Crimson scored Sunday, finally solving Princeton goalie Robyn Thompson, who earlier stopped a penalty stroke, it put the Tigers up against a wall and they responded.

“I just thought that we finally switched on and started to put more thought in and play with more intention,” said Tagliente. “I think when you go down that late in the game, there’s a sometimes a tendency to just kind of just force it and try to get it back immediately. But I actually thought we played with a lot more intention, made some good decisions, got in the circle and got a quick penalty corner.”

Yeager’s drive off the corner was tipped in perfectly by Cashman. Just like that, the momentum swung back to the tournament top seeds and hosts.

“I was really proud of the team at that moment,” said Yeager. “I think that was maybe our best moment the entire game. It’s definitely possible for teams to score with two minutes left, but it’s tough, especially collegiately, and it doesn’t happen a ton, especially in a game where it is like high stakes and the opposing team has a strong resolve to make sure you don’t score. We should take a lot of confidence from that because it shows our ability when we are a little bit more like determined and have kind of a cool collected desire to score.”

Princeton will need to be on its top game to defeat a Boston College team that lost just twice in the competitive ACC. They fell to unbeaten North Carolina in the conference final. The Tigers saw BC earlier in the year while scouting their Northwestern game and saw a skilled, fast team.

“What stuck out to me is just their pressure,” said Tagliente. “When I talk about a wave of pressure, that’s how they play. Their athletes are fast. They remind me a little bit of a Maryland-type team. I think it’ll be a good matchup for us.”

If Princeton wins Friday, it will face either Lafayette or St. Joseph’s. The Tigers were supposed to play Saint Joseph’s in the regular season, but both teams agreed to cancel the game due to schedule demands. Princeton knows less about Lafayette, which upended Patriot League powerhouse American 2-1 to reach the NCAAs. The Tigers feel they have a winnable bracket and are in good position to earn a pair of victories that would earn them a trip to the Final 4 at Michigan.

“I’m just excited looking forward to this upcoming weekend to have another chance to represent Princeton and compete with my best friends,” said Yeager. “It’s a really special time of year because we have worked so hard and we’ve overcome so much and now it’s kind of like we’re reaping the rewards and we are given the chance to compete for a national championship, which is what you work for.”