Princeton Outlasts Penn State, Reaches First NCAA Semifinal Since 2022

NEWARK, Del. — Princeton’s skilled offense kept peppering the cage. Andrew McMeekin racked up faceoff wins. The thermometer on the field hit triple digits. Penn State lost its most dynamic offensive player to injury for much of the game.

Drip, drip, drip — and eventually things spilled over in Sunday’s NCAA quarterfinals.

The top-seeded Tigers outlasted the persistent eighth-seeded Nittany Lions 14-10 before 6,807 at Delaware Stadium, scoring the final five goals in a game defined by the various forms of pressure placed on Penn State.

Tucker Wade scored four goals and Chad Palumbo had two goals and three assists for Princeton (15-2), which advanced to the semifinals for the first time since 2022.

“It’s really just a war of attrition,” said Tigers short-stick defensive midfielder Jackson Green, whose team will meet Duke on Saturday in Charlottesville, Va.

Preston Hawkins made 17 saves and Chase Robertson collected three goals for the Nittany Lions (10-6), who were denied their fourth all-time semifinal appearance and third in the last four years.

It was remarkable the Nittany Lions hung around as long as they did. McMeekin won 19 of 26 faceoffs, giving even less time to a talented offense that is often content to be judicious in the search of high-end scoring opportunities.

That tendency seemed to be even more amplified after sophomore attackman Hunter Aquino limped off at the end of the first quarter. Aquino, who didn’t take a shot Sunday, missed five games earlier in the season and dealt with nagging injuries during Penn State’s postseason run.

“The last couple weeks, he hasn’t been in a practice,” coach Jeff Tambroni said. “Not a minute before Army, not a minute before our game against Princeton. That was the hard part. The adjustment, we have plenty of guys who can catch and throw and shoot and score. Hunter does it a little bit of a different level. Just really hard to watch. Two years in a row, it’s happened to him down the stretch.”

Indeed, Penn State did find other options to reply when Princeton threatened to pull away. Robertson and Andrew Beard scored in the final 1:13 of the first half to deadlock it at 6, and Kyle Lehman and Mark Watters opened the second-half scoring.

Even after Princeton scored the next three, Penn State nosed ahead on goals from Liam Matthews and Robertson to make it 10-9 on the sweltering turf at Delaware, where on-field conditions reached 112 degrees.

All the while, the Tigers generated more than enough chances. Hawkins, a freshman, stymied some of them with a career high in saves. But Princeton also hit the post three times in the opening minutes, rarely straying too far from the target.

Even as the Nittany Lions shifted from man to zone and back and defenseman Alex Ross helped limit Princeton’s Nate Kabiri, a Tewaaraton Award finalist, to two assists, Tigers offensive coordinator Jim Mitchell remained steadfast in his approach.

“He’s like, ‘We’re kind of sticking to the game plan. We’re getting great looks, we’re just dinging pipes and we hope some shots fall,’” Princeton coach Matt Madalon said. “That’s kind of playoff lacrosse.”

Madalon’s overarching message didn’t change, either. The task for Princeton was to make basic plays, stick around and rely on the team’s basic systems.

Both teams were wearied by the heat, and the Tigers got uncharacteristically sloppy. Green had one of the puzzling turnovers with a bad pass on a clear, but he quickly delivered a more memorable play to spark Princeton’s comeback.

After forcing a turnover while using the skills that make him a useful wide receiver for the Tigers’ football team, Green scampered downfield and passed to Palumbo, who found Quinn Krammer for the tying goal with 11:06 remaining.

“I had to make up for it because obviously I threw the ball away,” Green said. “It was a long possession for them, and I wanted to stay on the field so I could make a play at the time.”

Palumbo assisted on John Dunphey’s go-ahead goal with 6:43 left, and McMeekin scored five seconds later after he faked a pass after a clean faceoff win.

By the time Wade scored with 5:06 left to make it 13-10, there was little Penn State could do. The Nittany Lions took only four shots in the fourth quarter, three of them snared by Tiger goalie Ryan Croddick (eight saves).

“The amount of possessions that we had, it made it hard in the fourth quarter,” Tambroni said. “You could just see the weight of the first three quarters kind of weighing down on our guys.”

Princeton avoided a pair of unwanted bookends. Three years ago, the Tigers’ current seniors saw their freshman season conclude with a first round loss at Penn State. And this season began with a 13-7 defeat at home to the Nittany Lions.

It will end in Charlottesville’s Scott Stadium, which last hosted a postseason game in 2004. Princeton won that one, an overtime defeat of Maryland in the second game of a quarterfinal doubleheader. The Tigers didn’t get back to the semifinals until 18 years later.

Now, they’ll play on the season’s final weekend for the second time under Madalon, who has constructed one of the sport’s steadiest programs — and one capable of bringing home the program’s first national titles in a quarter-century.

“We’re five NCAA tournaments in five years,” Madalon said. “It’s always about consistency in terms of the program. You’re not a flash-in-the-pan team, so we just try to learn and get better every year.”