When the horn sounded on St. Joseph’s 5-0 loss to Northwestern in the NCAA field hockey championship game, coach Hannah Prince knew she would have to replace the team’s top four points leaders, all graduate students in their final seasons of eligibility.
The Hawks had adopted a “do-or-die” mentality in their run to the school’s first appearance in an NCAA title game in any sport.
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Prince brought in 18 newcomers this season, nine transfers and nine freshmen, to try to replace the departing production. With a retooled roster, the Hawks’ theme for this season is a bit less extreme than last season. The Hawks are building “brick-by-brick,” as Prince describes it.
“It’s about progress over perfection and where we’re at as a program,” said Prince, the Hawks’ fourth-year coach. “It’s about building every day.”
Now, 10 games into the season, the Hawks are still coming together. St. Joe’s was ranked No. 9 in the National Field Hockey Coaches Association’s top 20 preseason poll but has dropped into a tie for 19th after opening the season with a 6-4 record.
‘It’s St. Joe’s or nothing’
One of the transfers Prince pulled out of the portal was Paige Kieft. Kieft, a Newtown Square native, played high school field hockey at Notre Dame de Namur and four seasons at Maryland. Kieft went to back-to-back Final Fours with the Terrapins in 2021 and 2022. After Kieft graduated from Maryland last spring, she knew where she wanted to use her year of graduate eligibility.
“I called Hannah on the phone; it was one of my last conversations,” Kieft said. “I said, ‘It’s St. Joe’s or nothing.’ I’m either going to not take my fifth year or it’s going to be at St. Joe’s.”
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Kieft and Prince crossed paths while playing for Team USA. As she began her coaching career, Prince also captained the U.S. indoor National Team, playing defense from 2015 until her retirement in 2021. Kieft played for the U.S. Junior National Indoor Team as a preteen.
“I was definitely a bit scared of her as a kid,” Kieft recalled through laughter.
Childhood fears aside, Kieft admired what Prince had done at St. Joe’s since taking over as head coach in 2022. The Hawks’ success in last year’s postseason further convinced Kieft that she wanted to spend her final season on Hawk Hill.
“Friends that have played here, and people that are still on the team just spoke so highly of the coaching staff [and] the culture that they’ve installed here,” Kieft said. “Their success last season was just the cherry on top.”
Transferring to St. Joe’s gave Kieft an opportunity to finish her college career closer to home. When she stands between the goalposts at Ellen Ryan Field, she’s less than 10 miles from the field she played on at Notre Dame.
“One of the big draws to St. Joe’s was being able to come back to Philly,” Kieft said. “I live 25 minutes away from here. Being near my family, near my community, is such an amazing part.”
Kieft has started in all 10 of the Hawks’ games this season, logging 585 minutes. Her goals against average of .922 is the best mark among goalkeepers in the Atlantic 10.
“There were a few goalkeepers in the portal, but I immediately knew that Paige was the one that I felt would come in and really enhance what we’re doing,” Prince said. “She’s confident. She communicates. She cares about people. She sets an example with her hard work.”
Kieft has also provided veteran leadership alongside her reliable play, which is important on a team with 18 newcomers. The Hawks still are building and strengthening relationships off the field, which Kieft says has helped the team on it.
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“With new people, there’s always going to be things to work out,” Kieft said. “I think we’ve really valued trying to get to know each other off the field. Who we are as people and not just as players. I think doing that has made us stronger.”
‘We have some building to do’
Prince knew reloading her roster from last year’s season would make for a challenging season. St Joe’s has lost four games already this season. It went 20-4 on its way to the title game last season, taking its fourth loss in the national title game.
“On paper, no, we’re not on the same track,” Prince said. “But, all that really matters is what happens now.”
Prince has kept realistic expectations for her team through the early part of the season. The Hawks had their first practice as a team on Aug. 8, just 22 days before the team opened its season with a 2-1 shootout win over UConn.
And though St. Joe’s don’t look as dominant as they did this time last year, there are reasons to believe that the Hawks can extend their streak of four consecutive NCAA Tournament berths. Two of the team’s four losses came against ranked opponents, a 2-1 overtime loss to No. 18 Penn State and a 1-0 loss to No. 10 Maryland. The other two losses came at home to Louisville, 2-0, and a 2-1 loss to Villanova.
“I would have liked to have [different] outcomes with Maryland, Penn State, Louisville,” Prince said. “But, we learned a ton from those losses. If anything, those losses allowed us to really see areas where we needed to develop.”
The Hawks’ best win this season came in their opening game against the Huskies, who were ranked 11th in the preseason coaches poll. Kieft made seven saves in her debut as a Hawk, including a stop in the sixth round of the shootout to give the Hawks their first win of the season.
Considering the limited time the Hawks have had, Prince is less concerned with how the Hawks play in September and more concerned with how her team is playing when it reaches the end of its regular season on Halloween and during the postseason in November.
“Our job and our goal as a group is to be peaking at the beginning of November, not peaking in September,” Prince said. “Because we recognize that we have some building to do.”
While only eight Hawks returned from last season’s run, the expectation to build upon the historic season remains. St. Joe’s has won the A-10 tournament in seven of the last eight seasons, sending it to the NCAA Tournament seven times since 2017. Prince has not missed the NCAA Tournament in her three seasons as head coach.
Even with the pressure applied by previous success, this year’s Hawks are more interested in a slow, methodical build than trying to race to meet lofty goals.
“There’s a lot of pressure, for the team as a whole and as the program, to match the same level of what we did last year,” Kieft said. “What we’ve been thinking about is just taking it one game at a time. … It’s just been about what’s on the docket for tomorrow. What do we need to get done? What do we need to accomplish?”