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Princeton University Athletics
Princeton University
Penn State
No. 1 Princeton, No. 8 Penn State Meet In NCAA Quarterfinals
May 15, 2026 | Men's Lacrosse
NCAA TOURNAMENT QUARTERFINALS
No. 1 SEED PRINCETON (14-2)
vs
No. 8 SEED PENN STATE (10-5)
Sunday, May 17 • Noon
Delaware Stadium • Newark, Del.
ESPNU
JOHN DUNPHEY FEATURE STORY
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ESPNU
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Princeton all-time NCAA results
Princeton all-time NCAA tournament records
Probable Princeton starters
Career highs
Career scoring/pronunciations
A – Again
Princeton opened its season on Valentines’ Day against Penn State, falling 13-7 on Sherrerd Field. High temperature that day in Princeton was 34. Penn State led 7-1 after the first quarter after outshooting Princeton 14-2 in the first 15 minutes. Hunter Aquino of Penn State, who scored three times, was the only player in the game with more than two goals. The winner of the Princeton-Penn State game advances to the national semifinals to take on the winner of Georgetown-Duke. Princeton is making its 25th NCAA tournament appearance. The Tigers are 34-18 in NCAA games, with six NCAA championships (1992, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001), eight NCAA championship game appearances and 11 Final Fours (most recently in 2022). Princeton remains the most recent team to win three straight NCAA championships. Princeton is 11-7 all-time in quarterfinal games.
B – Ball Control
Nate Kabiri has 35G, 41A for 76 points this season, with only 14 turnovers. There are nine players in Division I who have 76 or more points; the other eight average 34.5 turnovers and all but one (Towson’s Mikey Weisshaar) have at least twice as many as Kabiri. Weisshaar has 27, one short of twice as many as Kabiri. As a team, Princeton is seventh in Division I in fewest turnovers per game at 13.19.
C – Chad
Chad Palumbo has 12 goals on 15 shots with three assists in his last two NCAA tournament games. The six goals equal the Princeton NCAA single-game record, which has been done six times now: twice each by Palumbo and Chris Massey and once each by Jesse Hubbard and Coulter Mackesy.
D – Defense
After allowing six goals in the first 18:39 against Yale, Princeton has allowed only 22 more in the last 161:21. Princeton leads the Ivy League in scoring defense at 9.88 per game. Princeton allowed 186 goals a year ago in 17 games; through 16 games this year Princeton has allowed 158.
E – Experience
Princeton is in the NCAA tournament for the fifth straight year. Prior to that, Princeton had not been to the NCAA tournament since 2012. Princeton’s current streak is its longest since going to the tournament every year from 1990-2004 and is the second-longest active one in Division I (Georgetown, eight).
F – Fab Four
Princeton’s top four shortstick defensive midfielders — Owen Fischer, Jackson Green, Quinn Krammer, Cooper Mueller — have combined for eight goals, five assists, 30 caused turnovers and 73 groundballs.
G – Goals
Since being held to seven goals in the opener against Penn State, Princeton has scored at least 11 goals in the last 15 games, including at least 15 in eight of the last nine. Princeton’s streak of 15 straight games with at least 11 goals is the longest in the history of the program. Princeton has scored 237 goals in 2026, the most in any season in program history.
H – Hundred
Nate Kabiri enters the quarterfinal game with 99 career goals. Chad Palumbo enters the game with 98 career goals. Princeton has 16 career 100-goal scorers.
I – In Case
Princeton is 6-2 all-time in NCAA tournament overtime games, though it has not played an OT NCAA game since losing at Georgetown in 2007. Of Princetons six NCAA titles, four of them were won in overtime. Among current Princeton players, only Colin Burns has an OT goal in his career (assisted by Nate Kabiri). Princeton has played only three OT games since any current player has been on the roster, with the Penn State win in 2025 and losses to Rutgers and Cornell in 2023.
J – John Dunphey vs. John Dunphey
John Dunphey had 23 career goals and 15 career assists for his first three seasons. Through six games this season, he had added four more goals and three more assists, giving him 27 goals and 18 assists for 45 points, in 42 games with a career shooting percentage of .243 to that point. In the last 10 games, Dunphey 15 goals and 14 assists, for 29 points, for an average of 3.2 per game, or triple his career average prior to that. He has scored those 15 goals on just 24 shots, which is a .625 shooting percentage.
K – Kabiri
Nate Kabiri is a Tewaaraton Award finalist, Princeton’s sixth (Trevor Tierney, Ryan Boyle, Tom Schreiber twice, Michael Sowers, Coulter Mackesy). Kabiri also leads all Division I juniors in career points with 194 (12th overall) and is Kabiri and Michael Sowers are the only two Princeton players ever with at least 90 career goals and 90 career assists.
Nate Kabiri in the Princeton record book:
Career points at Princeton
7. Mikey MacDonald (2012-15) 208
8. Tom Schreiber (2011-14) 200
9. Nate Kabiri (2024-present) 194
Career assists at Princeton
4. Jon Hess (1995-98) 133
5. Dave Heubeck 1977-80) 99
6. Don Hahn (1949-51) 96
7. Nate Kabiri (2024-present) 95
Points by the end of junior year
1. Michael Sowers 261
2. Nate Kabiri 194
Points in a season
1. Michael Sowers (2019) 90
2. Michael Sowers (2018) 83
3. Michael Sowers (2017) 82
4. Coulter Mackesy (2023)/Mikey MacDonald (2015) 78
6. Nate Kabiri (2026) 76
L – Lineup Changes
Princeton made several lineup changes after the Week 1 loss to Penn State, moving Chad Palumbo from midfield to attack and Peter Buonanno from attack to midfield and moving Jack Stahl from longstick midfield to close defense and moving Cooper Kistler from close defense to LSM. Princeton is 14-1 since.
M – Madalon
Matt Madalon has been Princeton’s head coach since the final five games of the 2016 season. He has a career record of 88-43, for a .672 winning percentage that trails only Bill Tierney’s .735 (and Ernie Ransom, who went 7-2-1 in his only season as interim head coach, 1950). Since 2022 Madalon has won three Ivy League tournament championships and one Ivy League championship, has taken the team to five straight NCAA tournaments, has been to two quarterfinals and been to one Final Four.
N – No. 1
Princeton is the No. 1 overall seed for the third time (1996, 1997, 2026). The No. 1 overall seed has won the championship in six of the last 18 tournaments.
O – Offense
Princeton is third in Division I and first among the remaining eight teams in goals per game with 14.88. Penn State is seventh in Division I and second among the remaining teams (behind Notre Dame) in scoring defense at 8.73 per game.
P – Postseason
Nate Kabiri and Chad Palumbo have combined for 49G, 41A in 11 career postseason games (seven Ivy tournament, four NCAA), an average of 8.12 points per game. The two have combined to average 6.5 points per game in regular season games.
Q – Quarterly
Princeton has outscored its last five opponents (Harvard, Dartmouth, Yale, Cornell, Marist) by a combined 30-4 in the third quarter.
R – Revis
Cooper Revis, filling in for injured Russ Fitzgerald in the NCAA game against Marist, went 6 for 10 after being 5 for 13 for the season prior to that.
S – Saves
Ryan Croddick needs three saves to become the second Princeton goalie ever with two seasons of at least 200 saves. Kevin Gray (1975 and 1976) is the other.
T – Tucker
Tucker Wade has at least one goal in each of the last 23 games and is the only player with at least one goal in every game this season. Wade has scored the first Princeton goal in 14 of the last 33 games, including the last two.
Season goals by a Princeton midfielder
1. Kip Orban (2015) 45
2. Josh Sims (2000) 36
3. Mark Kovler (2009) 34
4. Josh Sims (1998) 32
5. Austin Sims (2018) 32
6. Tom Schreiber (2012) 32
7. Tucker Wade (2026) 31
U – Unprecedented
Parker Reynolds has 15 goals and 14 assists; no other Princeton freshman midfielder has ever had as many of both. Reynolds has at least one point in 14 of 16 games this year; the only two times he’s been shut out were against Penn State in the opener and Marist last week.
V – Vana, McDonald, Malkiel
Princeton’s second midfield unit of sophomores Jake Vana, Aiden McDonald and Porter Malkiel has combined for 35 goals on 75 shots (.467). McDonald and Malkiel are a combined 19 for 35 (.543). The three are tied for second in Division I for most goals by a second midfield unit, two behind North Carolina.
W – Winning
Princeton enters the NCAA quarterfinals on a nine-game winning streak. Princeton is 27-6 since the start of last season and 57-23 since the start of the 2022 season.
X – Face-Off X
Princeton has a .553 face-off winning percentage for the season. Only once between 2012 and 2025 did Princeton win more than 50 percent of its face-offs. The last time Princeton had a higher single-season face-off percentage was 1997 (.609). Penn State ranks fifth in Division I at .601. Cornell ranks fifth; Andrew McMeekin went 14 for 26 against the Big Red in the Ivy League final. McMeekin is Princeton’s career record holder for face-off wins (670) and groundballs (426). McMeekin ranks second among active Division I players in both categories and first among all NCAA tournament face-off men in both. Princeton’s 247 face-off wins this season are the most ever in a single season in program history.
Y – Yikes
Princeton is 37th in man-down defense — but was ranked last in Division I after allowing six EMO goals against Brown (despite committing only four penalties in that game). Since that game, Princeton has allowed one extra-man goal on 21 opportunities. Princeton has allowed 12 EMO goals this year; six came against Brown.
Z – Zinger
Princeton and Penn State have played six times, including in State College in the 2023 NCAA tournament opening round, a game the Nittany Lions rallied from six goals back to win 13-12. The teams have split two regular season games the last two years, with each winning at the other’s home (including Princeton on a Colin Burns OT goal in 2025 inside Holuba Hall). The other meetings were all early season games in the 1990s, won by Princeton 9-7 in 1991 (at Loyola), 18-6 Princeton in a 1997 game that was also moved inside Holuba Hall due to the weather and 13-5 at Princeton in the rain in 1998.
PROBABLE PRINCETON LINEUP
Attack
0 Colin Burns (Jr., Potomac, Md.)
Team tri-captain (eighth junior captain in the last 25 years, along with George Baughan, Michael Sowers, Bear Goldstein, Tom Schreiber, John Cunningham, Jason Doneger and Ryan Boyle) ... Has 29 goals and 18 assists with a .433 shooting percentage ... had 3G, 2A in Ivy tournament final against Cornell and in NCAA opener against Marist ... had career-high five goals against Harvard, including the game-winner with 17 seconds to go (and three seconds on the shot clock); earned Ivy Offensive Player of the Week honors after that game ... had four goals each against North Carolina and Rutgers ... has started every game of his career ... third among active players with 81 goals, 43 assists and 124 points
2 Nate Kabiri (Jr., McLean, Va.)
USA Lacross Magazine first-team All-American ... Tewaaraton Award finalist ... unanimous first-team All-Ivy League ... Most Outstanding Player at the Ivy League Tournament ... second on the team in goals with 35 ... leads team in assists (41) and points (76) ... has 5G, 10A in last two games ... first Princeton player ever with three seasons of at least 30 goals 25 assists ... sixth Princeton player with a season of at least 30G, 30A ... is second at Princeton in points by the end of junior year (194), trailing only Michael Sowers (261) ... has at least one point in every game of his career ... has at least four points in 12 of last 13 games and at least three in every game except for one this season (Maryland) ... Ivy League Offensive Player of the Week and USILA Team of the Week after having 5G, 5A in wins against Syracuse and North Carolina
10 Chad Palumbo (Sr., Newton, Mass.)
Tewaaraton Award Top 25 Nominee ... third-team All-American by USA Lacrosse Magazine ... first-team All-Ivy League ... Ivy League All-Tournament Team ... leads the team with 42 goals ... is second with 67 points ... second on the team in assists (25)... has 12 goals on 15 shots with three assists in last two NCAA tournament games ... has gone from two to 26 to 28 to 42 goals and from two points to 37 to 47 as a junior and now to 67 in his four seasons ... started this season at midfield and moved to attack after one game ... has at least one goal in 15 of 16 games — only game without a goal was regular season game against Yale ... had five goals against both Penn and Brown ... tied the Harvard game with 1:41 to go ... three-time Ivy League All-Tournament Team selection ... team tri-captain ... No. 7 overall selection in the recent Premier Lacrosse League draft, by the Carolina Chaos
First Offensive Midfield
8 Parker Reynolds (Fr., Manlius, N.Y.)
Began the season on the second midfield but has started the last 12 games ... has 15G, 14A; no other Princeton freshman midfielder has ever had as many of both ... has at least one point 14 of 16 games ... had 2G, 3A in the Ivy tournament ... had three goals against Penn ... had a fourth-quarter goal against Harvard to tie score at 11-11
19 Tucker Wade (Jr., Bethesda, Md.)
First-team All-American by USA Lacrosse Magazine and Inside Lacrosse ... first-team All-Ivy League for the second straight year ... Ivy League tournament All-Tournament team ... third on the team with 31 goals ... only player on the team with at least one goal in every game this season ... has at least one goal in 23 straight games ... had three goals in both ILT games ... scored all three of his goals in ILT semifinal game against Yale during 7-0 run that turned 6-2 deficit to 9-6 lead ... has eight multi-goal games ... season high was four goals against Rutgers ... has scored Princeton’s first goal of the game in 15 games since the start of the 2025 season (33 games), including the last two ... has 95 career points (75G, 20A)
48 John Dunphey (Sr., Ridgewood, N.J.)
Honorable mention All-Ivy League ... has started 13 games ... has 19 goals and 17 assists ... had 23 career goals and 15 career assists for his first three seasons and had four goals and three assists through six games this season, giving him 27 goals and 18 assists for 45 points, in 42 games with a career shooting percentage of .243 to that point ... in the last 10 games, Dunphey 15 goals and 14 assists, for 29 points, for an average of 3.2 per game, or triple his career average prior to that; he has scored those 15 goals on just 24 shots, which is a .625 shooting percentage.
Second Offensive Midfield
33 Porter Malkiel (So., Portland, Ore.)
Has 11G, 3A this year after having 1G last year ... has 11 goals on 19 shots (.579) ... had career-high 3G, on three shots, against Cornell in Ivy tournament final ...
36 Jake Vana (So., Boxford, Mass.)
Has 16 goals and one assist ... has six multiple goal games ... had career-high of three goals against Yale in regular season game ... had four straight two-goal games (against Brown, Lehigh, Vermont, Penn)
77 Aidan McDonald (So., Maple Ridge, B.C.)
Has eight goals and three assists after missing all of last year and the first two games of this season due to injuries ... leads team with three extra-man goals ... had a goal and assist against Brown and Dartmouth
Shortstick Defensive Midfield
4 Jackson Green (Jr., Rochester, N.Y.)
Honorable mention All-Ivy League ... has 10 caused turnovers and 24 groundballs ... had a goal against Cornell in ILT final ... had a goal against Rutgers ... is a huge part of the clearing game ... caught 17 passes for 233 yards and three TDs; he is the first Princeton player since Mike Neary ’82 to have at least one goal in lacrosse and one touchdown in football for Princeton
14 Owen Fischer (Jr., Glen Arm, Md.)
Has six caused turnovers and 13 groundballs ... has played in every game
20 Quinn Krammer (Sr., Kirkland, Wash.)
Has three goals, two assists, three caused turnovers and 18 groundballs ... had two goals against Marist last week ... other goal came against Syracuse ... had assists against North Carolina and Lehigh
66 Cooper Mueller (Jr., Radnor, Pa.)
Has three goals and three assists, with 11 caused turnovers and 19 groundballs ... had goals against Maryland, Rutgers and Lehigh and assists against Penn (two) and Vermont ... has nine career goals on 17 career shots (.529) ... member of the basketball team in the winter ... father Kit was two-time Ivy League men’s basketball Player of the Year
Longstick Midfield
7 Zach Friedman (Sr., Arvada, Calif.)
Has eight caused turnovers and 28 groundballs ... had two CTs and four GBs a week ago ... PNC Bank Student-Athlete Achiever Award winner for the spring: “Friedman is a Student-Athlete Wellness Leader, SCORRE leader, member of the Varsity Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and founding member of the Varsity Athletes Pre-Medical Society. Additionally, Friedman is a two-year Co-President of Princeton's Best Buddies program, helping to promote inclusion for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. From Arvada, Colo., Friedman is a Politics major with a pre-med focus who spent last summer teaching indigenous Alaskan populations about health literacy topics.”
13 Nick Crowley (Sr., Peterborough, Ont.)
Has played in every game... has six groundballs and five caused turnovers ... can play close defense or LSM ... also plays on the man-down unit
88 Cooper Kistler (Sr., Tiburon, Calif.)
Academic All-Ivy league selection ... started first game of the season on close defense but has been an LSM since ... has seven caused turnovers and 23 groundballs ... also had assists against Vermont and Penn ... missed Rutgers and Yale games due to injury
Defense
15 Hunter Spiess (Jr., Old Greenwich, Conn.)
Honorable mention All-Ivy League ... started every game on defense ... has 14 caused turnovers and 50 groundballs ... Ivy Defensive Player of the Week after shutting out Penn’s Griffin Scane while having seven GBs and a caused turnover ... currently 14th among Princeton longsticks in single-season GBs
17 Finn Fox (So., Weston, Mass.)
Ivy League Tournament All-Tournament Team selection ... started every game on defense ... has 141 caused turnovers and 14 groundballs ... had three CTs against Marist in NCAA opener ... scored a goal against Vermont for the first of his career and the only goal by a Princeton longstick this season
28 Jack Stahl (Jr., Newport Beach, Calif.)
Tewaaraton Award Final 25 Nominee ... first-team All-American by Inside Lacrosse ... unanimous Ivy League Defenseman of the Year ... unanimous first-team All-Ivy League selection ... was an LSM for the first game and has started every game on defense since ... has 20 caused turnovers (leads team) and 22 groundballs ... has had more caused turnovers than goals allowed by the player he’s been guarding in eight of the 12 games since he’s moved to a starting defenseman spot ... two-time USILA Team of the Week selection ... Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week after Princeton’s win over Rutgers, when he held Colin Kurdyla to a single goal ... had a three-game stretch — against Kurdyla, Syracuse's Joey Spallina and UNC's Owen Duffy — where he allowed two goals on 20 shots, with five caused turnovers of his own mixed in ... Inside Lacrosse midseason second-team All-American ... Inside Lacrosse No. 1 breakout Player of the Year in midseason
Goalie
26 Ryan Croddick (Sr., Rumson, N.J.)
First-team All-Ivy League and Ivy League Goalie of the Year, both for the second straight year ... ILT All-Tournament Team ... has started every game the last two years ... needs three saves to become the first Princeton goalie ever with two seasons of at least 200 saves ... sixth in Division I in save percentage (.578) ... Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week and Division I Player of the Week after his 39-save, 16-goals-against weekend in a sweep of North Carolina and Syracuse ... made career-high 25 saves against UNC, which is the highest single-game total by a Princeton goalie since 1985 (and also the Sherrerd Field record) ... made point-blank save against Maryland as time expired to preserve 13-12 Princeton win
Face-Off
32 Andrew McMeekin (Sr., Newtown Square, Pa.)
Second-team All-Ivy League ... Has won 191of 330 face-offs (.571) with 125 groundballs ... Princeton record holder for career FO wins and career GBs ... set the Princeton record for career FO wins in the ILT final against Cornell and now has 670 ... Princeton record holder for groundballs in a career (426) and season (132; he has 125 this season) ... is the only Princeton player ever with multiple seasons of 100 GBs (he has three of them) ... leads Ivy League and is eighth in Division I in groundballs per game (7.81) ... is second among active Division I players in career FO wins and career GBs ... was 19 for 21 with 15 GBs and an assist against Dartmouth to earn Ivy Defensive Player of the Week award ... had goals against Syracuse, Brown and Harvard and assists against Maryland, Syracuse, Rutgers and Dartmouth ... has five games of double figure GBs ... three-time Ivy League All-Tournament Team, including Most Outstanding Player in 2024 ... is 191 for 336 (.568) with 118 groundballs in 13 postseason games (eight Ivy tournament, five NCAA)
99 Russ Fitzgerald (Fr., Flourtown, Pa.)
Is 41 for 87 (.500) on face-offs ... has 23 groundballs and a caused turnover ... had one assist, against Vermont ... missed Marist game due to injury
99 Cooper Revis (Fr., Chevy Chase, Md.)
Is 12 for 23 on face-offs ... went 6 for 10 against Marist in the NCAA game after being 5 for 13 for the season prior
