Post's 19 saves on Saturday with the most in NCAA Division I field hockey this season
By: Justin Lafleur
(Photo by Greg Carrocio)
HANOVER, N.H. — After making a career-high 19 saves at No. 8 Princeton Saturday, and making national news, Dartmouth field hockey senior goalkeeper Hatley Post was awarded with Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week on Monday. She becomes the Big Green's second weekly award winner of the season – marking the first time since 2013 that the program has won two. Classmate Holley Cromwell garnered Offensive Player of the Week earlier this year, meaning it's the first time since 2012 that two different Dartmouth student-athletes have won a weekly award in the same season.
In that 2013 campaign, Ali Savage was named Player of the Week three times. The year prior, Savage won it twice while Maggie Scanlon won it once. It's also the first time since 2011 that Dartmouth won each of the two weekly awards presented that season (that year, it was Player and Rookie of the Week).
Post's 19 saves on Saturday were the most in NCAA Division I field hockey this season. It was a career-high (eight more than her previous high), as she became just the second Ivy League student-athlete to stop that many shots in one game in over 13 seasons. It was also the fewest goals allowed by anyone nationally with at least 19 saves since Boston College's Jonna Kennedy stopped 21-of-22 sent her way against Syracuse on Apr. 10, 2021.
The Houston, Texas native had six second-quarter saves and eight in the third, including a sequence that made No. 10 on SportsCenter's Top 10 Plays of the Day.
Post's effort kept Dartmouth in the game until the final seconds, looking to pull a top-10 upset. After an early Tigers' goal, Post and Dartmouth's defense shut-out Princeton for the game's final 51:46, marking the Tigers' longest scoreless streak since Oct. 23, 2021 at Harvard. It was Princeton's longest scoreless streak at home since Sept. 26, 2021 vs. No. 2 Rutgers (57:50). All this came against the nation's No. 5 ranked scoring offense entering the day (averaging 3.32 goals per game).
The Big Green held Princeton to its fewest goals in an Ivy League home game since the Tigers scored one on Oct. 20, 2018 against No. 9 Harvard. It was Princeton's fewest goals at home against an unranked Ivy League opponent since Oct. 25, 2014. In addition, Dartmouth allowed its fewest goals against Princeton since a 2-1 win against the Tigers on Sept. 17, 2011. That was the Big Green's last win against Princeton, as Saturday marked Dartmouth's smallest margin of defeat in the all-time series since that game. It was also the Big Green's fewest goals allowed at Princeton since Sept. 22, 1990, a 1-0 defeat.
The Big Green will return home this weekend to host No. 15 Harvard on Friday (3 p.m.) and UMass-Lowell on Sunday (2 p.m.). Both games will be streamed on ESPN+.