On a chilly Thursday night in New Jersey, the women’s soccer team (9-4-4, 3-2-2 Ivy) fell to Princeton (8-6-3, 5-2-0) 3-0 in the semifinals of the Ivy League Tournament.
The loss ends the team’s 9-win season and marks the second consecutive year the team has fallen to Princeton in the postseason.
“Obviously we didn’t accomplish what we had hoped to, but I think it would be naive to consider this season a failure,” Bruno goalkeeper Addison Etter ’29 wrote in an email to the Herald. “I think our fight and will to win up until the last whistle is to be celebrated.”
The game came just five days after Bruno’s previous 2-1 loss to the Tigers in their final regular-season matchup. Despite the loss, Brown still managed to clinch a No. 4 seed in the Ivy Tournament.
In a rematch of the 2024 Ivy League Championship, where Princeton prevailed 2-0, the Bears were again set to face the No. 1 seeded Tigers. Despite this history, Bruno came into the matchup with a hunger to dethrone the reigning champions and advance to the Ivy League Championship.
Brown entered the game with the league’s top offense, led by just-named 2025 Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year Joy Okonye ’27, who was named First Team All-Ivy alongside Naya Cardoza ’26. During regular-season play, Okonye and Cardoza led the league in goals with 7 each, with Okonye also leading the league with her 19 points and 4 game-winning goals.
The star-studded offense came out swinging from the opening kickoff, but seemed to meet its match with Princeton’s strong backline, headed by 2025 Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year Drew Coomans. But Brown had its chances early on as each team shook off the nerves and hoped to gain an early advantage in the high-stakes match.
Both teams went back and forth with attacks, but none that came to fruition early on. Princeton almost scored in the sixth minute after a corner kick but missed high. Then Brown almost struck 10 minutes later with a shot by Hannah Schapiro ’27, who missed wide.
But in the 27th minute, the scale tipped in the Tigers’ favor. Impressively maneuvering through Brown’s defensive line, Princeton’s Alexandra Barry crossed the ball over the middle to Kayla Wong, for a clean finish to bring the score to 1-0 Princeton.
Unfortunately for the Bears, Princeton’s momentum snowballed into another goal just 10 minutes later. Intercepting a clearance by Brown’s defense, the Tigers’ Sarah Houston found Wong in-stride. Breaking past her opponents, Wong crept into the box with defenders on her heels and smoothly netted the ball past Etter, marking her second goal of the game and extending the Tigers’ lead to two.
The final minutes of the first half played out without change. When the half came to a close, Brown had no shots on goal in the first half compared to Princeton’s 4.
Despite the onslaught of Princeton goals in the first, the Bears entered the second half with a renewed sense of purpose: fighting to keep the season alive. The team’s offense garnered 2 corners in the first 4 minutes, but was stonewalled by the Tigers’ strong defense.
Still, Brown continued to put on the pressure with relentless attacks. Shooting a free kick in the 60th minute, Okonye almost curled a beautiful ball into the top left corner, but narrowly missed wide.
Despite playing down a woman after a red card on Ayla Sahin ’28 in the 63rd minute, Brown remained strong. Etter delivered an impressive set of saves.
Brown’s arguably best chance to change the course of the game came with a header by Cardoza in front of the net in the 76th minute. But the Princeton goaltender made the save. As the clock wound down, Brown gave everything they had offensively. With a flurry of attacks, Brown outshot Princeton 10-8 in the second half.
But none of the attacks culminated in a goal, and Princeton put the icing on the cake in the 85th minute with another goal to make it 3-0. At the whistle, Princeton punched their ticket to the Ivy League Championship, where they would later lose to Dartmouth (11-3-4, 4-1-2).
“I am excited to see where we go from here,” Etter wrote. “The team has a lot of influential returners, which will allow us to build on what we started this year to get back to the Ivy Tournament next year.”
