High-Flying Princeton Offense Inspiring Lofty Aspirations

Haven Dora idolized Kyla Sears as a teenager in Spring Lake, N.J., less than an hour’s drive from where Sears was rewriting the Princeton record book. But she didn’t intentionally take Sears’ jersey number, 7, to honor the all-time Tiger.

“When I sent out the list of numbers when it was my senior prom weekend,” Dora said, “another player in my class chose my first choice, No. 2, so I got No. 7. I don’t think anyone wanted to take her number — it’s massive shoes to fill. And then when I got here, they gave out bag tags and mine said, ‘Haven Dora Sears.’”

But Dora has made a name for herself and is carving out her own legacy at No. 5 Princeton. Last year, Dora broke Sears’ single-season assist mark with 40. She’s already surpassed the record with 43 assists this year and three regular-season games left, beginning at No. 18 Penn Wednesday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on ESPNU. Dora has a chance to break former Penn star Gabby Rosenzweig’s Ivy League record of 63 assists set in 2019.

And that’s just scratching the surface of how Princeton’s three-headed monster of an offense, which also includes senior attacker McKenzie Blake and junior attacker Jami MacDonald, have put their stamps on history. Dora’s seven-assist performances against Delaware and Hofstra were program firsts. MacDonald became the fourth Tiger to tally 10 points in a game when they played Harvard. Blake is the first Princeton player to score eight goals in a single game twice in a year (Rutgers and Stony Brook). She is also the third player in conference history to score 200 goals, joining Harvard’s Francesca DenHartog (249; 1980-83) and the aforementioned Sears (209; 2018-20, 2022).

Blake is second in Division I in goals per game (5.0), Dora is third in the country with 3.58 assists per game and the Tigers boast the nation’s seventh-ranked scoring offense (16.33 goals per game).

Just as Dora’s jersey number seems like a manifestation come true, so does the success of the Tigers’ offense. But it wasn’t an overnight success, and it began with vision — on the field and into the future.

“You saw more than an ability to get to the cage and put the ball in the back of the net,” said Kerrin Maurer, associate head coach at Princeton. “They truly saw the openings for not only themselves, but their teammates and how to get the ball there.”

The coaches could also see plays unfolding down the road, when the Tigers would have plenty of openings as players like Sears hung up their jerseys, albeit later than expected because of COVID-19.

“When you take notes, you know McKenzie, Haven and Jami are all program changers,” head coach Jenn Cook said. “You could envision them playing together. McKenzie’s a lefty, and Jami’s a lefty, so we could see them playing together pretty clearly. Haven was different. She was a middie, and we loved her between the 30s.”

Circumstances, including an ACL injury during Dora’s senior year in high school, saw the Tigers turn her into an attacker. It wasn’t the only twist the trio would undergo during their early years on campus, including a changing of the guard for the coaching staff, on the roster and within the Ivy League.

But Blake’s entry into Princeton was business as usual. The Haddonfield, N.J., product played for former Tiger Lauren Farrell, who encouraged her to look into Princeton. Another coach from her youth days has also left a clear, lasting impact: Her mother, Jessica, who played for Saint Joseph’s in college.

“McKenzie is such a coach’s kid,” Cook said. “It's so obvious to see it on field. You look at huddles after goals, and you see McKenzie in there directing people along with Haven and Jami, helping the group around them grow and see what they see.”

It’s a skill Blake learned from Sears in 2022, the seventh-straight Ivy crown for the Tigers, a streak snapped the following season.

“Kyla had lacrosse IQ and showed me little movements to make my game more effective, but her leadership and communication skills propelled me as I’ve continued my journey at Princeton,” Blake said. “After Kyla graduated, there was a gap for a vocal leader. The defense graduated a ton of seniors, too [including Marge Donovan and goalie Sam Fish]. That’s where I found myself, even as a sophomore, trying to step into that role. That’s when I realized I could make an impact on this program.”

Part of Blake’s impact included bringing along MacDonald and Dora, who arrived when she was a sophomore. Blake knew about Dora from the Jersey lacrosse circuit and had heard all about her would-be lefty counterpart, MacDonald, whose brother Mikey played on the Princeton men’s team. Cook and Maurer had high hopes for the two, with Maurer calling MacDonald the first true low attacker she had recruited to Princeton.

“Jami has a nose for the goal and can bury the ball in the back of the net,” Maurer said. “Once she gets past her defender, it’s pretty automatic that she’s getting a solid shot on the cage.”

Blake saw it right away.

“Jami’s dominant on that low crease,” Blake said. “She has really good field and game awareness of where her defender is, when it's the right time to take a dodge, when she needs to move the ball and then when she needs to get an assist or pass.”

The feeding is something Maurer said the staff worked with MacDonald on, and it’s come to fruition in 2025. MacDonald already has a personal-best 23 assists this year, surpassing her totals from 2024 (21) and 2023 (18).

All three play unselfishly, but Dora is the assist queen, even if she initially drew attention for her tenacity between the 30s and her ability to play both ends of the field. When Dora got cleared to play in the winter of her freshman year, the new regime took note of other skills that primed her for a low-crease attacker spot.

“She was in some drills, and I was just really noticing her field vision and how she was able to see the game and the cutters,” Maurer said.

Dora’s ability to dodge and her right-handedness complemented the lefty MacDonald’s skill set.

“She was put into a new position at low attack, and you could tell right when she stepped on the field and Kerrin had placed her behind goal line that she was going to do great,” MacDonald said. “Her field position is absolutely insane. I’ve been saying that for years, but she sees the game so well, and I knew it would be a great three to four years when she started to play her freshman year.”

But Princeton experienced growing pains that year in the first season following Chris Sailer’s retirement. Dora noted the change in the pace of the college game marked an adjustment, and it wasn’t the only one. Sailer had exited, Cook was promoted, and the Ivy League was competitive.

Rivals like Penn and Yale didn’t see the same roster upheaval as the Tigers, and those two teams — not Princeton — battled for the Ivy crown. The Tigers did not receive an at-large bid into the NCAA tournament, either.

“It felt like everything was changing, and it seemed like a rebuilding year for us,” Dora said. “We were almost starting fresh and seeing how far we could go. Obviously, we didn't do as well as we wanted, but that has fueled us the past two years.”

Cook is aware of the Princeton standard. She coached in the system for years with Sailer. But she doesn’t necessarily subscribe to the external pressures, either. Cook took the job expecting a process and trusting the plan.

“It does take time for players to understand your vision, use the same language and see the game the same way — that development takes time and experience,” Cook said.

Maurer also noticed a shift in defensive schemes, with teams other than the likes of USC and Stony Brook favoring zones over 1-v-1. The offense had to shift to compete — another process with a steep learning curve.

“Zone offense is something that's new to a lot of kids coming in — how we move the ball, how we see the game,” Maurer said. “We spent a good amount of time last year figuring out where we needed to be and what skills we needed to break down these zone defenses. It’s more like basketball, and everyone's kind of bought in that that was an area we've needed to improve upon. It clearly has paid off.”

Ultimately, the players had the will and the skills to cause fits. MacDonald developed as a feeder, Dora grew into her role, and Blake’s cutting abilities — a hallmark of Sears’ — and IQ leveled up with the new knowledge of zone defenses. And the process is ongoing.

“They all have very different strengths, but they balance each other super well,” Maurer said. “They all learned something from each other's games. I constantly challenge them to not just do the one thing they like to do.”

Dora and MacDonald got to see one another in new flights at the World Lacrosse U20 Women’s World Championship last summer in Hong Kong, China — on opposing teams’ scouting reports. Dora won gold with the U.S., while MacDonald starred and took silver with Canada.

“It was interesting to watch from an opposing perspective and try and understand why she is feeding the ball,” MacDonald said.

Dora prefers to be on the same team but says the new perspective paid off when the duo reunited.

“She’s one of my best friends, so in the back of my mind, I'm like, ‘Oh, don't go too hard on her,’” Dora said. “But the two of us having that experience helps in leadership, playing behind the cage and as offensive quarterbacks.”

Despite the international experience and veteran leadership returning on both ends of the field, including 2024 Ivy League Goalkeeper of the Year Amelia Hughes, the Tigers found themselves in third place in the preseason conference poll.

“Nobody was talking about our experience,” Cook said. “We have this underdog mentality flying under the radar piece. As a coach, you always know how kids are developing, but maybe not everybody else does.”

Cook saw it developing over the last three years. A 16-14 win at Loyola served as an early confidence booster, and a 20-6 drubbing of Harvard on March 8 made another statement.

People see it now when they watch Princeton, but the Tigers know that’s a double-edged sword.

“People are going to compete against us and want to take us down,” Dora said. “We have to keep playing hard and continue to do what we do well without feeding into what other teams want to make us do. We’re playing our game and focusing on the plan the coaches have for us.”

But part of the plan — and the vision — is to reclaim their annual spot atop the conference.

“It’s our time to prove that the Ivy League is ours again,” MacDonald said. “We need to come out firing on all cylinders, and everyone else bought into that idea.”

That’s the short-term goal, but the Tigers are also building for the long haul with this trio of attackers laying a new foundation.

“The three of them have perfected where they are in the zone and how to move to move the ball, which is great for the younger kids to watch,” Maurer said. “I can be like, ‘Watch what Haven does when she catches the ball. Watch where her eyes and hands are. Try to see what she is seeing.’ It helps our younger players and defense so that when we need to get in a zone, we’ve prepared the team at a high level to communicate what we’re seeing and tighten up gaps.”

Speaking of communication, Dora gets an occasional message from a familiar name. She now has Sears’ jersey number, but the former Tigers All-American has her digits, too, and bridges the gap between past and present.

“A few times she’s texted me and said, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing. It’s fun to watch you,’” Dora said. “It’s a good feeling. She left big shoes to fill, and I’m doing everything in my power to show up every single day.”