No. 2 Princeton faces 2024 national champ Northwestern in 2025 NCAA DI field hockey finale
Olivia Bent-Cole (Northwestern), Caitlin Thompson (Princeton), Ashley Sessa (Northwestern), and Anna Faulstich (Princeton) each scored in the 2025 NCAA DI semifinals.
The 2025 NCAA Division I national championship game will feature the Northwestern Wildcats of the Big Ten Conference — the reigning national champions — and Princeton, the 2025 Ivy League Champions.
How they got there:
Elite Eight
- North Carolina defeated Duke 2-1 in overtime, with Sanne Hak scoring the winning goal. Merritt Skubisz made five saves for Carolina, and Kaiya Chepow had seven for Duke.
- Harvard won 1-0 against UConn. Martha le Huray scored the only goal. Natalie McKenna made eight saves for UConn, and Linde Burger had four for Harvard.
- Northwestern beat Miami (Ohio) 3-2. Grace Schulze scored the go-ahead goal. Juliana Boon made one save for Northwestern, and Nicky Sjouken had seven for Miami.
- Princeton topped Syracuse 2-1, with Beth Yeager scoring the winning goal in the 58th minute. Jessie Eiselin made five saves for Syracuse, and Olivia Caponiti had one for Princeton.
Final Four
The Tigers defeated Harvard 2-0 in the semifinals. Anna Faulstich scored the first goal in the third quarter with a low, narrow-angled shot. In the fourth quarter, with 3:45 remaining, Harvard pulled their goalie. Caitlin Thompson scored the second goal into an empty net with 15 seconds left after intercepting a pass.
In the other semifinal, No. 1 seed North Carolina lost 4-3 to Northwestern in overtime. North Carolina initially led 3-1 in the third quarter with goals from Kara and Ryleigh Heck, a corner conversion by Charly Bruder and Isabel Boere.
Northwestern's Maja Zivojnovic scored their first goal from a corner. And, Maddie Zimmer to Olivia Bent Cole cut the deficit to 3-2 Carolina. Ilse Tromp, with just over one minute remaining, tied the game for Northwestern.
The Wildcats secured the win in overtime when a pass from Zimmer, deflected by Zivojnovic to Sessa, which was kicked into the cage by a Carolina player.
Thank you for reading Female Athlete News. Sydney Madden is a student intern at Penn State University.