After building a powerhouse at St. Joe’s, Hannah Prince wants to bring Penn State field hockey back to winning ways

Hannah Prince hasn’t always been a standout Division I coach, nor has she always led with the conviction she does now as the Penn State field hockey coach. But she’s long been around the sport — starting nearly 30 years ago in Gorham, Maine.

When Prince was 6 years old, she made a declaration: She would make her high school’s varsity field hockey team. She did just that, which sparked a successful four-year career at Massachusetts.

The Minutewomen went 56-33 and won three Atlantic 10 titles during Prince’s four-year career as a starting defenseman. Following the team’s NCAA Tournament quarterfinal run in 2013, Prince, a senior at the time, earned National Field Hockey Coaches Association first-team all-region and A-10 first-team all-conference honors.

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Prince continued playing after college and was captain of the U.S. women’s indoor team for six years, leading the team to gold at the 2017 Pan American Cup.

Prince’s captaincy meant holding others accountable. It meant leading by example and never asking teammates to do something she wouldn’t do herself.

“I like motivating people. I like building relationships with them that are strong, so they know I care,” Prince said. “I chose to work for some really great people who believed in me and allowed me to have a hand in certain technical and tactical areas.”

Success has followed Prince at every stop of her coaching journey, which started in 2015 when New Hampshire made the America East title game in her first of two seasons as an assistant coach.

Prince later joined St. Joseph’s as an assistant during the program’s first run to the NCAA Tournament in 2017. She then helped Louisville to the Final Four in the spring of 2021 before returning to Hawk Hill in 2022, this time as head coach.

One of the “great people” she worked for was Justine Sowry, her coach at UMass, who has spent the last 14 seasons as Louisville’s coach. Prince credited Sowry for introducing her to coaching and for teaching her the patience required to build a championship-level program.

Sowry lauded her former player for different reasons, ones that extend beyond the field.

“[Prince] is an extrovert. She’s got that energy. She bounces around, and so many people are drawn to her,” Sowry said. “She just shows so much initiative. She took a lot of the weight off my plate just by being who she is … I don’t think I would have been able to get through [the 2020 COVID-19 season] if Hannah weren’t on my staff. She was an absolute godsend for so many more reasons other than just coaching hockey.”

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After a final ride under Sowry’s tutelage, Prince accepted the head coaching gig at St. Joe’s, where she went 64-14 in four seasons. The Hawks made four NCAA Tournament appearances and won two Atlantic 10 regular-season titles and four A-10 tournament titles.

In 2023, Prince navigated the Hawks to their first-ever NCAA Tournament win. The next season, Prince guided them to the most wins in program history (20) and the NCAA title game, which marked the first time in school history that any St. Joe’s team had competed for a national championship.

She praised the Philadelphia area’s support during the Hawks’ title pursuit. She also lauded the resolve of her team, which embraced a “why not us” mentality as the tournament’s underdogs.

Prince built the Hawks into a field hockey contender and galvanized area support for her team on its surge toward a championship — a showcase of her program-building prowess.

“[Prince] is passionate, she’s driven, she’s a competitor, and she’s a proven winner,” Sowry said. “She can run a program. She’s got the X’s and O’s covered. And even areas that she might feel deficient in, she has the confidence to bring in coaches that can complement her or make her better.”

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Now, she’s ready for her next opportunity: Bringing a once-great Penn State program back into contention.

Under former coach Charlene Morett-Curtiss, the Nittany Lions went 524-219-9 and made eight NCAA Tournament appearances. But in the three seasons since her 2023 retirement, Penn State won just 24 of its 51 games and missed the NCAA Tournament each season.

Prince wants to win national championships in Happy Valley. And that starts with creating a culture of accountability and pride.

“I want [Penn State] to be described as a bunch of empowered, strong, and fearless women who are playing together for a collective reason, because they want to play for each other,” Prince said. “They want to play for those who came before them. They want to play for that legacy.”