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“We’d like to say it's just not a game. Obviously that’s not the case, it's a big game,” remarked Harvard field hockey head coach Tjerk van Herwaarden ahead of the highly anticipated Harvard-Princeton match this Sunday in Princeton, N.J.
Since 2016, Harvard and Princeton have traded first place spots every other year in Ivy League standings. Last season, Harvard earned a well-fought 2-1 victory over the Tigers in Cambridge in a penalty shootout. At the time, Harvard was 17-1, on a 12 game winning streak, and had a 0.944 winning statistic. Princeton was 10-7, on a two game winning streak with a 0.588 winning statistic.
Now, the two schools display similar statistics. Harvard has won four of its past five regular season meetings against Princeton. The Crimson currently holds the number one seat in Ivy League standings. But both schools are 4-0 in conference records this season. Harvard has a current 0.786 winning statistic and Princeton closely follows with 0.714.
“I think the reality is that we are two very good teams,” van Herwaarden said. “It could be a little bit luck, it could be a little bit of the form of the day, which eventually makes a bit of a difference.”
The truth is that Sunday’s game could go either way. Harvard is a young team equipped with a number of first-years and sophomores who have since stepped up into leadership roles. But Princeton retains a large number of then-juniors, now-seniors that some of Harvard’s older players have experience playing against.
“We have three seniors to start, Princeton has eight. That could make a big difference in the game and the pressure of the game itself,” the head coach stated.
“Which one is the better one, I guess we’ll find out on Sunday.”
Though Harvard is young, its first-years have been some of the most instrumental in the season thus far. First-year Bronte-May Brough, who also happens to be the Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week, leads the team in points (19) and is third in the Ivy League in points and goals.
Princeton may have the age, but Harvard brings both new skills and old experience. Brough, in addition to teammate Kitty Chapple ‘26, played in the Junior World Cup for England. They are not strangers to competing in games with large stakes despite lacking first-hand experience with the Harvard-Princeton rivalry. To accompany this talent, Harvard is equipped with a roster of returning players who are familiar with the competition Princeton will bring, to boot playing and beating teams like No. 5 Louisville and No. 7 Michigan.
“This has never been about, you know, ‘let's do again what we did last year’ or ‘build upon what we did last year,’” van Herwaarden recalled. “But it still can help what we did last year because we have a lot of people rejoining playing these types of games.”
“We will look to those people to step up this upcoming weekend and to do the right thing.”
Nonetheless, this game in particular has been part of what the team has prepared for since the start of the season.
“At the end of the day, this is what we have prepared for since the middle of August,” van Herwaarden commented. “People have been here before…we’ve seen it before in the last five, six years…this has been the game that decides the Ivy League championship.”
But Harvard heads into this Ivy game just as any other: grounding themselves in their strengths and being aware of how and where they can be attacked.
“I think we are the team that realizes that we can go down in the game, we prepare for it to that extent but knowing that we have enough power to score goals.”
In the Crimson’s recent game against Dartmouth, which they won 3-2, Harvard unusually trailed first in the first quarter.
“The first goal came a little unexpected and I think out of nowhere as well with maybe two or three individual mistakes, one little misjudgement on the last play,” van Herwaarden said.
“We definitely had a little bit of difficulty with the field, the ball bounced a little bit differently than we typically see, so that really gave Dartmouth the easy lead to that extent.”
But the Crimson took no time to respond, as only two minutes later, Brough scored her seventh of the season from a penalty corner.
The game remained 1-1 until late in the fourth quarter till Brough broke the tie. The Big Green, however, then scored off of a deflected penalty corner, something that is rarely seen in field hockey.
“I don’t see that ever happening again where a deflection gets that much height and really finds the back of the cage,” the head coach reflected.
“In all fairness, a really good executed corner is really difficult to stop…it presented us with something that you really rarely see in field hockey and that led to the second goal and we were able to get more of a level of competitive drive in us and get a third goal back at the end of the game.”
And that competitive drive propelled first-year Kate Oliver to put one in the net, leading the Crimson to a well-fought victory.
In the Delaware game, 2-1, Harvard scored first, but needed another fourth quarter goal from junior Mazarine Broze to edge the Blue Hens 2-1.
“Scoring first is of course always pleasant—it builds confidence in the game itself, you force your opponent to work a little bit harder and put more time and effort into it to get the goal back,” van Herwaarden commented.
“When you look at the Delaware game, especially in the second half, we were completely dominating and were able to put a lot of technical pressure onto their circle,” he continued.
Though the score might not have displayed it, the Delaware game was much better executed than Harvard’s match against Dartmouth: the team connected much better and played more competitively.
“We were more competitive knowing that Delaware would be a stronger team and I think we really prepared for it well…in general that we were definitely the more dominant side.”
Next up, Harvard will hit the road for its match against Princeton on Sunday at 12:00 PM EST.
—Staff writer Mairead B. Baker can be reached at mairead.baker@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @baker_mairead.
