NEW HAVEN, Conn. – The No. 12 Yale field hockey team (12-5, 4-3 Ivy League) faces No. 2 Northwestern (18-1, 8-0 Big Ten), the defending national champions, Friday (2:30 p.m.,
ESPN+,
Live Stats,
Tickets) in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The game is at No. 5 Virginia. The Cavaliers are the No. 4 seed in the Tournament, and they play Miami (Ohio) Friday at 12:00 p.m. The winners of Friday's games play Sunday at 1:00 p.m. to advance to the NCAA semifinals. This is the first NCAA Tournament appearance in school history for Yale.
Among Yale's Best
Yale's 12 wins this season are tied for third-most in school history. The school record for wins in a season is 15, set in 1998. Yale's wins this season include one vs. a nationally ranked team (3-1 vs. No. 19 Monmouth on Sept. 14) and the team's first win vs. UConn in school history (1-0, after winning the shootout 2-0 following two scoreless overtimes, on Oct. 12). The Bulldogs won six games in a row from Oct. 5 through Oct. 24, their longest winning streak since winning seven in a row in the Ivy League Championship season of 2011.
NCAA Tournament Seeding, Schedule
NCAA Tournament selections for 2025 were announced Sunday night. The 18 team field includes 10 automatic qualifiers and eight at-large selections. Two opening-round games were contested Wednesday among the four lowest automatic-qualification teams. Fairfield beat BU 1-0 and Saint Joseph's beat Drexel 2-0.
The top four teams in the NCAA Tournament are seeded and host first- second-round games Friday and Sunday. The four seeded teams are:
- North Carolina (ACC)
- Princeton (Ivy League)
- Harvard (Ivy League)
- Virginia (ACC)
The semifinals and championship game will be played on Friday, Nov. 21 (12:00 p.m. and 2:30 p.m.) and Sunday, Nov. 23 (1:00 p.m.) at Williams Field at Jack Katz Stadium on the campus of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. All three of those games will be televised on ESPNU.
Ivy League Tournament
Yale fell to No. 5 Princeton 3-0 in the Ivy League Tournament semifinals this past Friday. The Bulldogs were making their first Ivy Tournament appearance. Princeton went on to beat No. 3 Harvard, the tournament hosts, 2-1 on Sunday to claim the tournament title. Sophomore forward/midfielder
Chiara Picciafuoco (Buenos Aires, Argentina) and junior back
Hettie Whittington (Guildford, England) were named to the All-Tournament Team.
All-Ivy Honorees
Yale had six student-athletes
honored by the Ivy League last Wednesday as the league announced its annual awards. Yale's honorees were:
- First Team All-Ivy League
- Second Team All-Ivy League
- Honorable Mention All-Ivy League
- Academic All-Ivy League
In the National Rankings
Yale ranks No. 15 nationally in goals-against average (1.26) and No. 16 in winning percentage (.706).
A Decisive Advantage
Yale has outshot its opponents 296-150, an average margin of +8.6 shots per game.
Seniors Honored
Yale honored its senior class on Oct. 17, a 3-1 win vs. Dartmouth at Johnson Field. The Bulldogs' seniors are:
Iron Women
Eight Bulldogs have started all 17 games of the season:
Beales, Picciafuoco and Whittington also started all 16 games last year. Beales also started all 16 games in 2023.
Classy
Here is the breakdown of starts by class this season for Yale:
- Seniors 52 starts (four seniors have started at least one game)
- Juniors 35 starts (three juniors have started at least one game)
- Sophomores 67 starts (four sophomores have started at least one game)
- First-years 33 starts (three first years have started at least one game)
Big Goal Hettie
Junior back
Hettie Whittington (Guildford, England) has shown a knack for scoring big goals this season. That includes:
- Three game-winning goals, including one on a penalty stroke in overtime at Penn.
- The goal in the shootout Oct. 12 at UConn that eventually clinched a 1-0 win for the Bulldogs, their first victory ever against the Huskies (they had been 0-35). Because it came in a shootout, the goal does not count towards Whittington's individual goal total for the season. But her tally put Yale up 2-0 in the fourth round of the shootout, and a stop by first-year goalkeeper Amelie Schwarzkopf (Berlin, Germany) on UConn's next attempt clinched the win.
- A goal with 1:05 left in a 2-1 loss to then-No. 3 Harvard in the regular season finale. That goal would prove significant the following day, when Brown and Cornell won and wound up tying Yale for third in the final Ivy standings (all three teams were 4-3). The Ivy League tiebreakers came down to goal differential in league games. Brown and Yale were both +4 and Cornell was +2, so the Bears and the Bulldogs made the tournament and the Big Red (who had a head-to-head tiebreaker on Yale) was eliminated. Yale's head-to-head tiebreaker advantage on Brown thus earned the Bulldogs the No. 3 seed in the Ivy Tourney.
International Flavor
In addition to the United States, eight countries will be represented in Friday's game. That includes six players from the Netherlands and five from England. Here is the breakdown:
- Argentina: Yale 1
- Chile: Northwestern 1
- England: Yale 5
- Germany: Yale 1
- Lithuania: Yale 1
- Netherlands: Northwestern 4, Yale 2
- Scotland: Yale 1
- South Africa: Yale 1
Friday Weather Forecast for Charlottesville
From the
National Weather Service: High 64 degrees, sunny.
Scouting No. 2 Northwestern
Northwestern (18-1, 8-0 Big Ten) is 41-2 over the last two seasons, with its only losses being by one goal each (1-0 to then-No. 9 Michigan on Nov. 10, 2024 and 3-2 to then-No. 8 Princeton on Oct. 13, 2025). The Wildcats lead the nation in goals-against average (0.58) and goalie Juliana Boon is first individually in save percentage (.831). Ashley Sessa leads the nation in points per game (3.22), is third in assists per game (1.00) and is seventh in goals per game (1.11).
A Bulldog and a Wildcat
The Wildcats' coaching staff includes associate head coach
Georgia Holland '14. Holland was a two-time unanimous first team All-Ivy League pick at Yale, where she earned the school's Francis Gordon Brown Prize for leadership, scholarship and service. As a senior she was elected team captain and earned second team All-Mideast Region recognition. She was a part of Yale's 2011 Ivy League Championship team, earning Ivy League Rookie of the Year and second team All-Ivy honors that season.
