Record-Setter McKenzie Blake ’25 Leads Princeton Women’s Lacrosse to NCAA Quarterfinals

BALTIMORE — Early in the second half of Sunday’s second-round NCAA Tournament game against Johns Hopkins, attacker McKenzie Blake ’25 one-timed a pass from attacker Haven Dora ’26 into the back of the net. The goal, which was the sixth of eight for Blake that day, put Princeton up 12-5 in the Tigers’ eventual 18-12 win.

The goal also mattered for another reason: It was Blake’s 84th goal of the season, breaking an Ivy League record that had stood since 1981.

On the sideline, Tigers players celebrated the goal by playing a few rounds of duck, duck, goose before standing up and cheering.

“I don’t think I knew what the record was, so this is a bit of a surprise,” Blake said postgame. “That’s really cool, I think, just to be kind of up there [with] some of the Ivy League top scorers.”

Blake opened her scoring on Sunday in spectacular fashion, grabbing a loose ball near the crease and whipping it behind her back into the net. The finish was similar to her behind-the-back goal in Friday’s first-round win over Massachusetts that made SportsCenter’s top 10 plays.

On Sunday, Blake got a hat trick shortly before halftime on a powerful sidearm shot. Her fifth goal of the game came on a feed from Dora less than four minutes into the second half. That was her 83rd of the season, tying the record held by Harvard’s Francesca DenHartog.

“It never gets old,” goalie Amelia Hughes ’26 said about seeing Blake score. “[Junior defender] Dylan Allen … is right in front of me, and we always are like, ‘Oh my gosh, she did it again!’”

Blake, the unanimous Ivy League Attacker of the Year, now has 228 career goals, which ranks first in Princeton history and second in conference history behind DenHartog.

“McKenzie and her career, it has been historic and record-breaking,” head coach Jenn Cook said postgame. “That’s who we knew she was when we recruited her, and … she continues to elevate her game. And by her doing that, it elevates everybody else.”

To Cook’s point, Blake’s eight goals on Sunday tied the Princeton single-game record, yet she was only one part of a potent Tigers offense. Attacker Meg Morrisroe ’27 had four goals, and six other players scored one each. Attacker Jami MacDonald ’26 had five assists, and Dora’s four pushed her own Princeton single-season record to 58.

It was a similar story on Friday, when Princeton had nine goal scorers, and that formula helped the Tigers enter the NCAA Tournament ranked fourth nationally in RPI.

Early on, it didn’t look like Sunday’s game would be high-scoring. Neither team scored in the first six minutes, and both goalkeepers made multiple saves. Princeton’s defense was tested often, as Johns Hopkins controlled the draw in the first quarter.

Hughes made four of her nine total saves in the quarter, and Cook said the defensive stops boosted the Princeton attackers’ confidence.

That confidence started to show late in the second quarter and built throughout the third. After Johns Hopkins tied the game at four, Princeton went on an 11-2 run to lead 15-6 with 1:52 left in the third quarter. The Blue Jays couldn’t get closer than five after that.

With the win, the Tigers will play in the NCAA quarterfinals for the first time since 2019 and the first time under Cook. They’ll face top-ranked UNC, Cook’s alma mater, on Thursday, May 15, and try to advance to their first Final Four since 2004.

Against UNC, Princeton will embrace being the underdog. That’s how the Tigers saw themselves for much of the season after being picked third in the Ivy League preseason poll. They outperformed expectations by winning the regular-season title, but then they lost to Yale 17-6 in the Ivy League Tournament final.

That loss sent Princeton on the road and made it an underdog again in the NCAA Tournament. That might’ve been tough for some teams to process, but not the Tigers.

“Our kids like being the underdogs,” Cook said about the quarterfinal matchup. “They like the challenge, and … we’re excited for that.”