Croddick’s 20 Saves Power Princeton Past Duke, Into Final

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — It wasn’t 90 seconds into Saturday’s NCAA tournament semifinal when Ryan Croddick made his first save and knew that it would be a good afternoon.

Everyone else found out soon enough.

“From the first shot, you can kind of tell how the game’s going to go from there,” Croddick said. “It’s going to come easy or be hard like Penn State was last week. After that first shot, I was kind of feeling it.”

The Princeton goalie made 20 saves — the most in a semifinal in 31 years — and Colin Burns scored four goals as the top-seeded Tigers pulled away for a 14-7 victory over unseeded Duke at Scott Stadium.

Princeton (16-2), which advanced to its first title game since 2002, will face second-seeded Notre Dame in Monday’s title game.

Benn Johnston scored three goals for the Blue Devils (11-5), whose attempt to join 2016 North Carolina as the only unseeded teams to win a national title was halted.

“I thought when we made a mistake in the defensive end, they made us pay,” Duke coach John Danowski said. “That’s the mark of a really good team.”

As slick as Princeton was while turning what was a 4-4 game late in the first half into a rout, the Blue Devils’ biggest problem was Croddick. He had five saves after a quarter and 12 by halftime, seemingly gaining an edge with every stop.

But he was also a critical piece in the transition game. He had a sublime outlet pass to Jackson Green to set up Princeton’s second goal. More significantly, it was his stop in the final minute of the third quarter that ignited an unsettled opportunity that Burns finished with a man-down goal off a Chad Palumbo feed to make it 11-6.

The sheer quantity of saves, though, were a defining part of the proceedings. Croddick’s total was the most in an NCAA semifinal since Maryland’s Brian Dougherty had 23 in 1995 and tied with Scott Bacigalupo (1991) for the most by a Princeton goalie in an NCAA tournament game. The last goalie with 20 stops on Memorial Day weekend was Johns Hopkins’ Michael Gvozden, who made 20 in the title game in 2008.

“I have a lot of gray hair because of his four years here,” Princeton coach Matt Madalon said. “We keep getting better clearing. We’re 29 of 31 today, which is a stat we’re extremely proud of. That’s a part of the game you don’t want to turn the ball over. He’s the backstop, he’s the poise and he really does control it and he did a heck of a job today.”

While Croddick was busy causing problems for Duke — its starting midfield shot 0-for-18 — Princeton finally edged ahead late in the first half. Tucker Wade, who had missed his first five shots, deposited a dart late in the shot clock to make it 5-4.

Duke won the ensuing faceoff and long pole Mac Christmas took a shot that was — what else? — stopped by Croddick despite Danowski’s attempts to call timeout. Princeton then went down, and Wade took advantage of traffic in front of the cage to score with 1.7 seconds before the break.

“I was about 15 yards on the field and the officials said he didn’t hear me, which was disappointing,” Danowski said. “I would think the officials at this level of play would have understood that with a minute left and knowing we had timeouts available that he might have glanced over his shoulder, so that was disappointing. Then Mac Christmas takes a shot that was probably not a great decision at that point and the ball goes down to the other end and there was a swing.”

The Tigers also cleaned up their own problems. After an unusually sloppy first half when it committed 10 turnovers, Princeton had only one giveaway in the third quarter as it opened a five-goal advantage.

Tewaaraton finalist Nate Kabiri finished with three goals and two assists, while second-line midfielder Jake Vana had a hat trick.

“We knew that Duke was going to be a super-physical team and that we were going to have to move our feet on the perimeter,” Kabiri said. “Those turnovers really weren’t great, but we knew our superpower is ball movement, so just getting back to that was what helped.”

Princeton was playing in just its second semifinal in the last 24 seasons, and there was a striking contrast to its last appearance. The Tigers waited out a long rain delay in the early semifinal in 2022, then dealt with an undefeated Maryland buzzsaw and dropped a forgettable 13-8 decision in the nightcap.

Madalon acknowledged Saturday there was a thrill factor to that trip. It was certainly a bit of a novelty given how long the program had been away from the sport’s top tier.

This appearance wasn’t remotely surprising. Nor would a seventh national title come Monday, which would be Princeton’s first since 2001.

“It’s awesome for the program as a whole,” Croddick said. “It’s pretty cool on Monday that they’re honoring the 2001 team, the 25th anniversary. We all came here to play two games, not one.”