St. Joe’s is ‘going for gold’ on Sunday vs. Northwestern in the NCAA field hockey title game
It's a quick turnaround for Hannah Prince's Hawks, but they're eager to keep making school history. On the other side is a foe laden with locals.
Entering the season, St. Joseph’s field hockey’s goal was to have a legendary season, and it did just that. The Hawks made not just program history, but St. Joe’s athletics history as the first team to advance to a national championship.
“I constantly talk to the girls about our nonnegotiables, our core values, playing Hawk hockey,” coach Hannah Prince said. “We really have lived up to that standard, held each other accountable in tough moments that we’ve grown from, learned from, and came out better for on the other end.”
» READ MORE: St. Joseph’s one win away from a national field hockey crown
No matter the outcome of Sunday’s final against Northwestern, the 2024 Hawks will go down in history. But Prince said the job isn’t done yet.
“Being able to be in this position alone, I think, is incredible, and, again, honored to be in this position where we’ve already made history for our school, and I love representing St Joseph University,” Prince said. “We’re going for gold tomorrow.”
Unlike after their quarterfinal win last week against Princeton, when the Hawks knew they’d be facing North Carolina in the Final Four, St. Joe’s had less than 48 hours to scout and prepare for its matchup against Northwestern in the championship game.
“It kind of comes with the territory, and postseason is a little bit different than the conference tournament, where we really anticipated facing UMass,” Prince said. “Each of my three assistants and I have been just working around the clock when we’re not with the team to get the scout ready. It’s one of the fun parts of the job.”
The Hawks and the Wildcats have little familiarity as programs, having met only once, in 2009. But Northwestern’s roster is comprised of several locals and eight players from Pennsylvania, including Camden Catholic alumna Olivia Bent-Cole and Ashley Sessa, a member of the 2024 Olympic team, from Schwenksville, Pennsylvania. An Episcopal Academy graduate, Sessa transferred from UNC to Northwestern after her freshman season.
» READ MORE: Sunday’s NCAA field hockey championship game has a lot of local flair — and it’s not just from St. Joe’s
And while Prince is confident in her team, which she “thinks the world of” as people and players, she also is grateful for her coaching and support staff, which have helped with the “nonglamorous behind-the-scenes work” they’ve done to get the Hawks to this position.
“Whether that’s recovery with our athletic trainer, Hannah Walker, or film with my coaching staff, team bonding, the stuff that we do with our life coach, I’m so grateful for these amazing people who are so dedicated and just have my back and have the team’s back,” Prince said.
And every member of Prince’s team, staff and players alike, were ready to quickly get back to work following their 2-1 win over UNC.
“We took our time to celebrate. We did our debrief video. We looked back at all the really amazing things we did and some areas with things we can do better, and then we kind of closed that chapter this morning, after debrief video before we headed to practice,” Prince said. “So while the girls still are riding the high and have amazing energy because of the win, I think they also know we have a big task ahead, so they’re very excited about it.”
Just like in the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament at home on Ellen Ryan Field, the Hawks will have an outpouring of support filling the bleachers at Phyllis Ocker Field, with a fan bus making its way from Hawk Hill to Ann Arbor.
“I did not know they were going to do that, so when I saw the email come through, I was beside myself. I just think it’s the coolest thing to have a group from Philly coming to represent here, coming to cheer us on and help fill those stands up with Hawks fans,” Prince said. “That support that the athletic department has given us is just incredible, and I’m just very grateful for Jill [Bodensteiner], our athletic director, for pulling that off for us.”
Despite the pressure of the task ahead of them, the Hawks have gotten familiar with minimizing the noise and focusing on the moment in what Prince has called their “routine” over the last three weeks of the postseason.
“We’ve been working tirelessly to get the outcomes that we want, and I think our players know that tomorrow’s just like the last two [games] and that we are ready to finish the job over the weekend,” she said.