Nearly a decade ago, when head coach Jeff Kampersal convinced Annemarie Holmes that Princeton University was the place for her, the beginnings of a turnaround from an average hockey team to a championship level squad were in place.
“That started the transformation,” Kampersal says. “We used to have kids who played hockey. Now we had a hockey player.”
Holmes who graduated in 2003 was a magnet for recruits. One-by-one, quality athletes (and scholars – this is Princeton), came to play in northern New Jersey, in the facility named for the legendary Tiger hockey player, Hobey Baker, class of 1914, and the program has risen just about every year since then.
“That started the cycle,” said Kampersal. “They still take their schoolwork very seriously but they’re more well-rounded.”
Last season the team set a record for wins, finishing 21-8-4 before losing in the NCAA quarterfinals to Minnesota, the eventual national runner-up. It was the first time Princeton had ever been to the national tournament and the school’s first Ivy League title since 1995.
This year at 6-0-2, the Tigers are off to their best start ever. Along the way they have knocked off St. Lawrence (6-5) and have tied Boston College and Clarkson.
A winning tradition has been established with 77 wins in the last four seasons — an average of just over 19 per year.
“After 2006, we lost five seniors — all good kids,” said Kampersal. “We had a good season and I was just hoping the returning players wouldn’t come back and think they were better than they are.”
His fears were in vain. Not only did they come back with that winning edge, they are scoring more goals than the defensive-oriented squad has done in the past, six in wins over Quinnipiac and St. Lawrence and nine against Union. “I don’t know how often we’ve scored six goals — it’s unusual for us. Our strategy has been to try to limit shots from outside,” he said of the defensive protocol.
Last season they scored at least six goals in five games, but two or three goals per game were more typical. The Tigers averaged 3.15 goals while only giving up 1.72. So far this season, they’re averaging 4 and giving up 2.12.
Goaltender Kristen Young, only in her second year, has started six of seven games with a 4-0-2 record. She entered the season fairly untested, although Kampersal started her in two games at the end of the last season which she won, including a shutout of Union. Overall she was 2-1 with a 1.35 goals against average, playing behind two-year starter senior Roxanne Gaudiel, who had the lion’s (or tiger’s) share of the work.
“The last few games, we’ve been solid,” Kampersal said. “We have a solid corps of defensemen and goalie … this is our strength.”
The Tigers only lost two defensemen and those returning are seasoned and tough. Seniors Laura Watt and Dina McCumber are the two mainstays of the defense — they have yet to miss a game in their college careers. Lately, Watt has added more offense to her game and with 2 goals and 7 assists, good for third on the team in scoring.
“The freshmen are working very hard and the team gets along very well,” said Watt. Like other returning players, she envisions a trip back to the NCAAs. “It’s a really exciting atmosphere. Every thing is all set up and it was fun being part of the Final Eight. When I talked to my other friends, their seasons were over,” she said.
The Tigers used to be surrounded by giants in Ivy League competition, as Olympians made Brown, Harvard and Dartmouth their collegiate homes, but the Princeton program has become more competitive as the depth of the recruiting pool has deepened.
“Kids want to go where they can play,” said Watt. “So there’s more depth — now we’re not just playing two lines. We can easily field three.”
It wasn’t the challenge of Princeton’s hockey team that got Holmes, now a third year student at Case School of Law in Cleveland, to choose Princeton over Dartmouth and Harvard.
“It was a very tough decision,” she said, but in the end, her parents’ pressure for her to attend Princeton because of its strong undergraduate education, the ease of getting there from her home state of Minnesota, the “young, energetic” Kampersal who had just come on board himself and the chance to make an impact on a growing program all convinced her to go to New Jersey. She agrees that her commitment there — which brought in other very good, if not elite players from Minnesota — helped turn things around.
“It was easier for coach to tap into high schools and club teams in Minnesota,” she said. Her sister Nikola Holmes, who played on the German National Team (their mother is German so they have dual citizenship) followed her to Princeton.
Holmes took two years off after her junior year to train for the Olympics and was one of the last players cut before the Lake Placid squad was finalized. Princeton teammate Andrea Kilbourne made the silver-medal winning squad that year.
Like Watt, senior Kim Pearce has played in every game since she arrived (103 games). Along the way, she was named Ivy League Player of the Year last season and Rookie of the Year in 2003-04. The forward from Ontario leads the team with 13 points.
She, too, looked at the big three Ivies before committing to Princeton, but the visit and the potential of the team won her over.
“This year we have the potential to do as well as last year,” she said, citing a win over St. Lawrence (undefeated at the time) as some evidence of Tiger power. “That was a big win for us. We knew we were good as a team, but we had to show everyone else we could do it.”
The Tigers still have plenty of tests in front of them. On Nov. 24-25 they play back-to-back home games against Dartmouth and Harvard, and then the following weekend they travel to Mercyhurst for a pair of road games.
“So far we’ve done well, But we’re still just taking it one game at a time,” said Kampersal.
