When Things Don’t Bounce Your Way: Field Hockey Falls in NCAA Final Four

very athlete grows up dreaming of playing in truly great games. The kind of games with championship stakes, storied history, and two evenly matched teams. The Harvard field hockey team found itself in one of those perfect storms this season in the NCAA Final Four match against Princeton. With a trip to the national championship on the line, the Crimson looked primed to validate its incredible season, until it didn’t.

Harvard’s season started like a fairy tale. Coming off a stellar 2024 campaign in which the program went 16-4 with an Ivy League Championship and a second consecutive NCAA Quarterfinals appearance, the Crimson had somehow improved in the 2025 season.

Though there were bumps in the road and moments of tension in the story, namely a season-ending injury to senior goalkeeper Tessa Shahbo before the first game, Harvard seemed to weather every storm while recording an undefeated regular season.

“Every year I have been at Harvard, we have been able to reach new heights, but this season definitely felt a little different,” said junior forward and Ivy League Co-Offensive Player of the Year Sage Piekarski.

To fill the empty net left by Shahbo, a new character entered the plot, freshman goalkeeper Linde Burger. Burger excelled in the net for the Crimson, allowing less than a goal a game and recording nine shutouts on the season. In a stroke of poetic irony, she became the first goalkeeper to be named the Ivy League Rookie of the Year since Tessa Shahbo’s older sister, Ellie Shahbo ’23.

“Incredibly impressive,” said Piekarski of Burger. “It’s really challenging to come in as a freshman and be thrown right into the height of a field hockey season while adjusting to a new college, classwork, and homesickness.”

“She made an impact right away and was essential to our success throughout the season,” said junior defender Charlotte Casiraghi. “As a freshman, that’s just a huge undertaking and responsibility, and she handled it with so much grace.”

The undefeated regular season should not be confused with a boring one. In fact, tension and suspense came early and often as Harvard managed two overtime wins and a shootout victory in its first three games. Junior midfielder Lara Beekhuis scored the game-winner in the season-opener at the University of California, Berkeley, and sophomore midfielder Martha le Huray netted the golden goal in the third game at home against then-No. 12 Ohio State. In between the overtime victories was a 3-2 shootout win at Stanford.

The Crimson’s victory over the Buckeyes marked the first of seven wins over ranked teams during the regular season, but none of the wins were sweeter than a 3-1 victory over then-No. 8 Princeton.

Harvard and the Tigers’ rivalry is historic and has only grown hotter since the implementation of the Ivy League Tournament in 2023, with Harvard claiming one-goal victories over the Tigers in the first two tournament championships.

This time around, though, the Crimson made quick work of its rival, tallying a 3-1 victory on the road.

Smooth sailing defined many of the nine remaining regular-season affairs for Harvard. The team claimed its third undefeated Ivy League campaign in the last five years.

The Crimson’s dominance was reflected in the Ancient Eight’s season awards. Alongside Piekarski and Burger’s accolades, senior Bronte-May Brough was named the Defensive Player of the Year, and Head Coach Tjerk van Herwaarden’s staff received Coaching Staff of the Year.

Seven Harvard athletes were named to one of the three All-Ivy teams, with Brough and captain midfielder Kitty Chapple being unanimous First Team selections.

Good times kept rolling for the Crimson in the first round of the Ivy League Tournament, which Harvard earned the right to host as the top seed, with a 1-0 win over the University of Pennsylvania.

Waiting for the Crimson in the championship bout was, once again, Princeton. Hungry for revenge, this time, the Tigers pounced first with a penalty stroke goal, but an answer by Beekhuis knotted the score before halftime.

In the third quarter, the Ivy League’s other Co-Offensive Player of the Year, Princeton’s Beth Yeager, found the back of the net to restore the visitors’ lead.

Harvard continued to pressure the Tigers, desperate to tie the score, but remained behind with five minutes left in the game. In a last-minute flurry of attacks, the Crimson drew multiple corner attempts. With almost no time on the clock, le Huray inserted the ball. Brough put a powerful swing on the ball, but it was deflected off a defender’s foot. A follow-up attempt by freshman midfielder Rosa Kooijmans was blocked by a diving save by Princeton’s goalkeeper.

Now, with Harvard’s conference title hopes hanging in the balance, the ball floated in the air. Standing there, waiting for the ball was le Huray, who one-timed it into the net.

Bedlam erupted throughout the overflowing stands at Berylson Field. The noise was deafening to the point you couldn’t hear the person next to you, much less the whistle of the referee from the far side of the field.

What was missed amid the pandemonium was the referee’s late call on the kicked ball by Princeton. After a lengthy review and much complaining by everyone associated with the Crimson, the goal was disallowed. The home team was awarded the small consolation of another corner attempt, but the Tigers turned it, and Harvard’s conference tournament championship hopes, away.

Due to the Crimson’s incredible regular season, the team still earned the third seed in the NCAA Tournament, one spot behind Princeton, and the squad’s main goal remained within reach.

“Our team is really big on shared goals,” explained Casiraghi. “We have a lot of team meetings about what we’re striving for in the season, and the main goal is always to win a national championship.”

Thanks to the team’s high seed, Harvard earned the right to host the first two rounds at home, a right that the team cherished.

“The high point for me this past season was definitely the opportunity to host the NCAAs on our home turf,” said Piekarski. “Getting to begin our tournament run surrounded by so many friends, family, and supporters made it incredibly special. It’s something I will always remember.”

The Crimson fell behind 2-0 in its first matchup against the University of New Hampshire, but recovered quickly and decisively. Piekarski added three goals and an assist over the final three quarters as the home team routed the Wildcats 8-2.

Scoring was harder to come by in the second round against the University of Connecticut, but Harvard prevailed nonetheless in a 1-0 victory to advance to the Final Four.

Who else would be waiting for the Crimson in the semifinals but the Tigers?

“It’s really easy to think you know what’s coming, and that’s just not the case,” said Casiraghi about playing Princeton a third time. “We really tried to come into the game with a fresh mindset.”

“We showed up incredibly prepared to execute,” Piekarski said.

Entering with confidence from the regular season victory on the road, a desire to atone for the Ivy League Tournament, and the perfect setting for a third clash, the narrative was setting up perfectly for a storybook ending to the season.

But not all great stories have a happy ending. Sometimes, the Death Star doesn’t blow up, Cobra Kai never dies, and defeat truly is inevitable.

The familiarity that breeds tension and intrigue around the game also puts pressure on the athletes, and pressure in games with these stakes favors the defense.

Despite the Tigers receiving six corners in the first quarter, neither team was able to score. The second quarter came and went, and the scoreboard remained blank. At halftime, both teams made adjustments, but the changes still couldn’t change the score. After 11 quarters of competition between the foes across the season, just 15 minutes would decide which team walked away from the season with bragging rights.

The first disaster of the quarter struck nearly seven minutes into the period. Brough, the defensive heart and soul of the team, was hit with an exclusion. With her off the field, Princeton launched an offensive.

With four minutes remaining in the game, sophomore midfielder Anna Faulstich took the ball up the right side for the Tigers. She worked up the baseline with a defender smothering her, and another one coming to meet her. Faulstich swung at the ball, but didn’t hit it cleanly, sending an oddly-spinning, bouncing shot towards Burger.

Burger, who was tracking another offensive player cutting to the front of the net, appeared surprised by the mis-hit. From Faulstich’s position, the reasonable move, and likely her original intent, would be to put the ball in front of the net to allow your team an opportunity to score. However, this ball instead worked its way just barely in front of the post, ricocheting in off the side of Burger’s leg.

Brief confusion, then chaos, overtook the field. Harvard’s hopes were now on life support.

Things went from bad to worse for the Crimson soon after. Chasing down the ball in a frenzied attempt to score, Piekarski made contact with Princeton’s goalkeeper and was hit with an exclusion. Now, Harvard only had three minutes to score without the Ivy League’s most potent offensive threat.

Unfortunately for the Crimson, a comeback was not in the cards. It was instead the Tigers that tacked on one more with a last-second empty net goal.

“Sometimes you get the lucky bounces, and sometimes you don’t,” said Piekarski about the two losses to Princeton. “I would say things just didn’t shake our way in those two games.”

Perhaps as some solace for Harvard, things didn’t shake the Tigers’ way in the National Championship Game. Northwestern was instead crowned as the champion.

For the Crimson, the losses serve as motivation for next season and a reminder of how close the team is to its ultimate goal.

“All high-level athletes hate to lose, and after an undefeated regular season, it was especially painful,” explained Piekarski. “Knowing how much we were able to achieve is only motivation and proof that we can take it even further next fall.”

Despite graduating a very strong senior class of contributors, including Brough, Chapple, and All-Ivy Honorable Mention captain Fiene Oerlemans, Harvard is returning many talented athletes and will look to reload rather than rebuild in 2026.

—Staff writer Reed M. Trimble can be reached at [email protected].