‘It’s been a cool journey’: Inside St. Joe’s third consecutive A-10 field hockey championship

As the St. Joseph’s field hockey players gathered in the Hall of Fame room of Hagan Arena in their matching Atlantic 10 champions hats and shirts, the only sound that could be heard was that of head coach Hannah Prince asking her players to put their phones away.

For those with smart watches, place them on “do not disturb.”

The time was 10 p.m., and the Hawk Hill campus was quiet and mostly empty as the team waited in anticipation of the selection show — which would tell them their place in the NCAA Tournament.

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It didn’t take long for the Hawks to receive the news they were waiting for — they would head to College Park, Md., to take on No. 4 Virginia (12-6) in the first round of the NCAA Tournament at 2:30 p.m. Friday

“I think we’ve made huge strides, so I’m feeling great about it,” said Prince, who is in her second season as head coach. “But [I’m just] really just grateful and proud of the work [the team put in] to get us to this point.”

While Virginia earned an at-large bid into the tournament, St. Joe’s secured its bid as the No. 15 seed behind a third consecutive A-10 championship following a 2-1 defeat of UMass on Saturday.

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Katie Crist, a senior back for the Hawks, has been part of each of the three championship teams but said it has been a different experience each time.

“Each year, when we have a new team coming in, you get to see the freshmen or any of the transfers’ reactions to winning their first championship,” Crist said. “The vibes are so high, and everybody responds differently.”

The win over UMass marked the program’s sixth A-10 title in seven years, four of which Prince has been a part of, first as an assistant coach on the Hawks’ 2017 and 2018 championship teams.

“It’s been a cool journey,” Prince said. “Now that I’ve been a part of four of those six championships, I’m super proud of that.”

Behind a 16-4 overall record (7-0 A-10), the Hawks entered the A-10 tournament as the team to beat — a notion that senior Lily Santi said the team is aware of.

“People are always out to get us each year, especially after winning it so many times over and over,” said Santi, who scored for the Hawks in the A-10 title game. " I think everyone brings their best competition when they play us, too.”

In last year’s title game, the Hawks downed UMass, 3-0. This year’s rematch served as the fourth time the two teams have faced off in 13 months.

“It’s crazy we played them that many times, but I feel like we’ve really gotten to study them and try to think what would they do to try to beat us,” Prince said. “I think it’s helped us a lot.”

Santi, who leads the team in goals (12) and is the second-leading scorer with 27 points, was the only player to score a goal in each game of the tournament.

“I want to win. I want to win for the team and the program,” said Santi, who was also named the tourney’s most outstanding player,her second time receiving the award. “It’s putting in the hard work to do it for others. I was happy with myself. I was thankful for my teammates. After I got the award, I came back and I was like, ‘I wouldn’t have gotten that without you guys.’”

Just as Santi acknowledged the role her teammates played in her success, Prince also noted what makes this team special, calling the group “gritty, dedicated people, competitive people.”

“What sets us apart is people who aren’t afraid to do the hard work,” Prince said. “[They] aren’t afraid to say their goals and their dreams out loud and go after them.”

These goals aren’t fulfilled as the Hawks gear up for the first round of the NCAA Tournament. After learning the matchup for the first game, Prince reminded the Hawks that they remained as one of 18 teams left standing, a position they earned. She also reminded them that there was still a long way to go.

“I’m actually ecstatic that we pulled a team that we’ve already played because it’s easier to scout and it’s easier to go into the game with confidence,” Santi said of the Cavaliers, who beat the Hawks, 2-1, on Sept. 1.

After two tough losses to the Cavaliers in the last two years, the Hawks are out for revenge. They are counting on the previous games to give them knowledge on “specific things that we can start figuring out already in practice and working on it to get one 1% better,” said Crist.

“We have to practice how we want to play on Friday,” Santi added.

Crist said the way to do so is through positive accountability with teammates.

“Holding each other to a standard is really important,” Crist said. “But also how you hold each other to a standard is important to keep the positivity up and just keep good team energy going forward.”

Prince said St. Joe’s will not be straying away from what it knows as the NCAA Tournament begins. The Hawks hope that knowledge will prime them for a deep postseason run.

“Time to dance,” Santi said.