NEW HAVEN, Conn. – The No. 16 Yale field hockey team (12-4, 4-3 Ivy League) faces No. 5 Princeton Friday (2:30 p.m., ESPN+, International Stream, Live Stats, Tickets) in the Ivy League Tournament Semifinals. The Bulldogs are the No. 3 seed and the Tigers are the No. 2 seed. The winner advances to Sunday's Ivy League Tournament Championship and will face the winner of Friday's other semifinal game, between No. 3 Harvard (the No. 1 seed) and No. 19 Brown (the No. 4 seed).
 
IVY LEAGUE TOURNAMENT
The Ivy League Tournament takes place at the site of the No. 1 seed, Harvard, and includes the top four teams in the regular season standings. Semifinals take place Friday and the tournament championship game is Sunday. The winner earns the league's automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament.
 
This is the third year of the Ivy League Field Hockey Tournament. Harvard has won each of the past two tourneys.
 
ALL-IVY HONOREES
Yale had six student-athletes honored by the Ivy League Wednesday as the league announced its annual awards. Yale's honorees were:
 

• First Team All-Ivy League
  • Senior forward Poppy Beales (King's Lynn, England)
  • Sophomore forward/midfielder Chiara Picciafuoco (Buenos Aires, Argentina)

 

• Second Team All-Ivy League
  • First-year goalkeeper Amelie Schwarzkopf (Berlin, Germany)
  • Junior back Hettie Whittington (Guildford, England)

 

• Honorable Mention All-Ivy League
  • Sophomore midfielder Kaitlyn Chang (Houston, Texas)
  • Sophomore midfielder Victoria Collee (Laren, Netherlands)

 

• Academic All-Ivy League
  • Junior back Hettie Whittington (Guildford, England)

 
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 on Oct. 12, after winning the shootout 2-0 following two scoreless overtimes). 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.
 
IN THE NATIONAL RANKINGS
Through games of Nov. 5, Yale ranks No. 13 nationally in goals-against average (1.15) and winning percentage (.750).
 
A DECISIVE ADVANTAGE
Yale has outshot its opponents 293-141, an average margin of +9.5 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: 

• Forward Poppy Beales (King's Lynn, England)
• Forward/midfielder Lauren Venter (Knysna, South Africa)
• Back/midfielder CC Wolf (Short Hills, N.J.)
• Back Maddy Zavalick (Newington, Conn.)

 
IRON WOMEN
Eight Bulldogs have started all 16 games of the season:

• Senior forward Poppy Beales (King's Lynn, England)
• Sophomore midfielder Kaitlyn Chang (Houston, Texas)
• Sophomore forward Ymre Massée (Heteren, Netherlands)
• Sophomore forward/midfielder Chiara Picciafuoco (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
• Junior midfielder/forward Emma Ramsey (Summit, N.J.)
• Senior forward/midfielder Lauren Venter (Knysna, South Africa)
• Junior back Hettie Whittington (Guildford, England)
• Senior back Maddy Zavalick (Newington, Conn.)

 
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 49 starts (four seniors have started at least one game)
• Juniors 33 starts (three juniors have started at least one game)
• Sophomores 63 starts (four sophomores have started at least one game)
• First-years 31 starts (three first years have started at least one game)

RPI AND THE IVY LEAGUE
Here are the Ivy League teams in the RPI rankings from the NCAA through Nov. 5:
2. Harvard
3. Princeton
9. Yale
14. Penn
15. Brown
21. Cornell
32. Columbia
49. Dartmouth
 
The ACC (four) and the Ivy League (three) are the only conferences with three or more teams ranked in the top 10 of the RPI.
 
Last year the top 12 in the NCAA RPI rankings at the time of the NCAA Tournament selections all wound up being selected for the tournament. The lowest ranking for a team that earned an at-large berth was No. 14 (UMass).
 
NCAA TOURNAMENT SELECTIONS
NCAA Tournament selections for 2025 will be announced Sunday, Nov. 9 at 10:00 p.m. ET on ncaa.com. The 18 team field includes 10 automatic qualifiers and eight at-large selections. The 10 conferences with automatic bids include:

• America East Conference 
• Atlantic 10 Conference 
• Atlantic Coast Conference 
• Big East Conference 
• Big Ten Conference
• Coastal Athletic Association
• The Ivy League
• Mid-American Conference
• Northeast Conference
• Patriot League

NCAA TOURNAMENT SEEDING, SCHEDULE
Two opening-round games of the NCAA Tournament will be contested on Wednesday, Nov. 12 among the four lowest automatic-qualification teams. 
 
The top four teams in the NCAA Tournament are seeded and host first- second-round games Friday, Nov. 14 and Sunday, Nov. 16. 
 
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.
 
FRIDAY WEATHER FORECAST FOR CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
From the National Weather Service: High 56 degrees, increasing clouds.
 
SCOUTING No. 5 PRINCETON
Princeton (13-3, 6-1 Ivy League) has won nine in a row and has held its opponent to one goal or no goals in eight of those games. The Tigers are led by Beth Yeager, a four-time Ivy League Player of the Year Award winner. This year she shared the award with Harvard's Sage Piekarski. An Olympian, Yeager leads the Ivy League with 29 points on 10 goals and nine assists.