Softball Team Adds NCAA Win Before Season Wraps at NCAA Regional

Saturday, May 16

Stillwater, Okla.

3:30 PM ET/2:30 PM CT

Princeton University

34-14

Eastern Illinois

36-23

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	Runs R	Hits H	Errors E
Eastern Ill.	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	1	8	0
Princeton	0	1	1	0	0	0	X	2	5	0

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	Runs R	Hits H	Errors E
Stanford	5	1	0	4	0	1	2	13	16	1
Princeton	0	4	0	1	0	0	0	5	9	1

Photo by: Chad Hamilton

Softball Team Adds NCAA Win Before Season Wraps at NCAA Regional

May 16, 2026 | Softball

Box Score 1 Box Score 2

For the second consecutive trip to the NCAA regionals, the Princeton softball team won a game in the tournament, as the Tigers defeated Eastern Illinois 2-1 on Saturday in an elimination game before a loss to Stanford to end the season.

With the results, Princeton finished its season at 34-15, tying for the seventh-most wins in program history and most since 2006, when the Tigers also won 34 games. The win makes head coach Lisa Van Ackeren the third coach in Ivy League history to win games in multiple NCAA tournaments, along with the win over Ole Miss in the 2024 tournament, joining former Princeton coach Cindy Cohen (1994, 1995, 1996) and former Harvard coach Jenny Allard (1998, 2012). Van Ackeren wraps the season with 287 career wins, second in Princeton history (Cohen, 559) and fifth in Ivy history.

Against EIU, Princeton got on the board with a leadoff home run in the second inning and added to it by putting a run together in the third, with a Mia Valenzuela starting the inning with a single and coming home three batters later on a Graciela Dominguez base hit.

Cassidy Shaw threw 4 1/3 shutout innings, allowing six hits without a walk and striking out two before handing the ball to Brielle Wright for the final 2 2/3 innings and the save. Wright allowed a sixth-inning solo homer among her two hits without a walk, striking out five in closing out the win.

Stanford put up five runs in the first inning and one in the second before Princeton began to claw back with a four-run second inning. Karis Ford led off the inning with a homer, and after Abby Hornberger was hit by a pitch and Mia Valenzuela drew a walk, Camryn Bradshaw blasted a three-run home run, the first of the rookie's career, to get Princeton within 6-4.

Stanford answered with four runs in the fourth, and though Princeton got a run in the fifth when Graciela Dominguez lifted a sacrifice fly to pick up Bradshaw base hit three batters before, making it 9-5, Stanford added one in the sixth and two in the seventh.

The day closed the careers of Princeton's four seniors, Wright, Hornberger, Julia Dumais and Courtney Harrison, who helped the Tigers to four of their five consecutive Ivy League titles, hosting the Ivy League Tournament all four years of their career and making the NCAA tournament as sophomores and seniors.