Penn State names St. Joe’s Hannah Prince head field hockey coach
Prince in 2024 led the Hawks to the NCAA championship game, a first for any team in school history. Now, she'll take the reins of a Nittany Lions program that last reached the NCAA Tournament in 2022.
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — After amassing a 64-14 record across four seasons at St. Joseph’s, Hannah Prince on Tuesday was named the head field hockey coach at Penn State.
Prince, 33, had served as the Hawks’ head coach since 2022. St. Joe’s made the NCAA Tournament in each of her four seasons — success that included two Atlantic 10 regular-season titles and four A-10 tournament titles. In 2024, the Hawks won a program-record 20 games and reached the NCAA championship game, a first in any team sport in school history.
“I am deeply grateful to Saint Joseph’s University and to Vice President and Director of Athletics Jill Bodensteiner for trusting me with the opportunity to lead the field hockey program on Hawk Hill over the past four seasons,” Prince said Tuesday in a statement. “The student-athletes are truly the heart of this program. This team means more to me than I can put into words, and it has been an honor to coach such a resilient, kind, and committed group. I will miss them tremendously and will always be proud to be a Hawk. I wish the program nothing but continued success in its next chapter.”
Following the historic 2024 campaign, Prince and her staff were named the National Field Hockey Coaches Association Mid-Atlantic Region Coaching Staff of the Year. She then led the team to its fifth straight A-10 tournament title and another NCAA Tournament, where St. Joe’s beat Drexel before falling to North Carolina.
“I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to lead the Penn State field hockey program,” Prince said. “ … I am honored to join an athletic department with such a strong tradition of success and pride. I am excited to work with our field hockey student-athletes, bringing my passion for the game every day as we uphold the values of Penn State.”
» READ MORE: Penn State’s Kerry and Riley O’Donnell dedicate season to late field hockey advocate Gretta Ehret
Prince’s coaching career, which began at New Hampshire in 2015, includes stops as an assistant at St. Joe’s and Princeton and later as an associate head coach at Louisville.
Before coaching, Prince was a four-year starter at Massachusetts, where she won three A-10 titles. She was named NFHCA first-team all-region and first-team all-conference and also has represented the United States in international competition, winning a gold medal at the 2017 Pan American Cup.
Prince’s Hawks teams were mainstays in the NCAA Tournament and in the NFHCA rankings. Now, she’ll look to bring the Nittany Lions back to contention. They last reached the NCAA Tournament in 2022 and finished with a 7-10 record in 2025.
“Nittany Lion Field Hockey has a proud and storied tradition, and I am ready to pour my passion and energy into building a program that competes for championships,” Prince said.