Softball Team to Visit Lehigh Wednesday

Wednesday, April 1

Bethlehem, Pa.

4:00 PM

Princeton University

Lehigh

Julia Dumais and the Tigers will visit Lehigh on Wednesday.

Photo by: Shelley M. Szwast

March 30, 2026 | Softball

Standing at 6-0 in the Ivy League, the Princeton softball team will take a break from conference play for a Wednesday visit to Lehigh for a single game.

at Lehigh
Wednesday, 4 p.m. | ESPN+ | Live Stats

On Princeton: The Tigers (16-9, 6-0) have built a three-game lead in the Ivy League standings after sweeping Cornell and Columbia to start. Fifteen games remain in the league, with Brown and Penn coming to Cynthia Lynn Paul '94 Field over the next two weekends. Penn, Harvard, Brown and Dartmouth are all at 3-3. Princeton leads the Ivy League in batting average (.304), doubles (49), doubles per game (1.96), fielding percentage (.976), fewest hit batters by the pitching staff (six), hits (244), RBI per game (5.60), RBI (140), shutouts (three), runs scored (146), lowest WHIP for the pitching staff (1.56), and winning percentage (.640). Individually, the Tigers have the league leaders in doubles (Julia Dumais, 12), doubles per game (Dumais, 0.48, fourth nationally), times hit by pitch (Dumais, nine), hit by pitch per game (Dumais, 0.36), runs per game (Dumais, 1.16), saves (Brielle Wright and Reece Uehara, two each), shutouts (Uehara, two), triples (Sonia Zhang, four), and triples per game (Zhang, 0.16),

On Lehigh: The Mountain Hawks are 17-16 overall and 1-5 in the Patriot League, entering the midweeker after Boston University took two of three in the teams' weekend series in Boston last weekend. Kelly Fricker (.445 BA) and Peyton Sward (.416) pace the offense, which hits .302 as a team, while five arms have split the team's 216 1/3 innings and have a 4.47 staff ERA.

Series history: Princeton leads the all-time series 33-26-1. A four-time Patriot League Pitcher of the Year at Lehigh, Lisa Van Ackeren will take on her alma mater for the 19th time as Princeton's head coach. Lehigh won the first 10 meetings before Princeton won and tied (due to darkness) in a visit to Bethlehem in 2022. The teams played twice in Florida in 2023, both won by Lehigh, before Princeton won in Princeton later that season. A single-game visit to Bethlehem went to the Mountain Hawks, and Princeton rallied to win last year at home, scoring five runs in the sixth inning on the way to a 7-6 win. Jessica Phelps drove in three runs in the win while Braeden Hale drove in two, and Allie Goodwin had two hits as well, among returners. In the circle, now-graduated Meghan Harrington threw the first three innings before handing off to Keala Hollenkamp and Cassidy Shaw for two innings apiece.

The Ivy title run: Princeton has won the last four Ivy League titles, which are decided on regular-season play, and has hosted the last four Ivy League postseasons, including the 2022 Ivy League Playoff Series (winning two of three from Harvard), the 2023 Ivy League Tournament (made final, which Harvard won), the 2024 Ivy League Tournament (won), and the 2025 Ivy League Tournament (made final, which Brown won). Only one other time in Ivy League history has a team won at least four Ivy League titles in a row, and that was Princeton as well, which won seven straight from 1983-89.

Coaching staff: Princeton head coach Lisa Van Ackeren is in her 14th season at Princeton and is the dean of the current Ivy League coaches. All-time, Van Ackeren is the second-winningest coach in program history and is now tied for the fifth-winningest head coach in Ivy League history, at 269 wins, alongside former Brown coach Phil Pincince. The top four, all former coaches in the league, are Harvard's Jenny Allard (688), Cornell's Dick Blood (623), Princeton's Cindy Cohen (559) and Penn's Leslie King (354). Princeton has won six of the nine Ivy League Coach/Coaching Staff of the Year honors since the award was inaugurated in 2015, including 2016, 2017, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 (no award in 2020 or 2021). Assistant coach Alyssa Davis is entering her seventh season, Ashley McDonald her second, and Nicole Arias her 12th.