LYNCHBURG, Va. – BIG EAST Conference regular season and tournament champion Liberty will face Syracuse in the 2025 NCAA Division I Field Hockey Championship Sweet 16. The No. 7-ranked Lady Flames (17-2) will face the No. 10-ranked Orange (12-6) on Friday at 2:30 p.m. at Princeton's Bedford Field in Princeton, N.J.
Princeton is the No. 2 national seed and will host Sweet 16 and Elite Eight games on Friday and Sunday. The Tigers (15-3) will face the winner of Wednesday's game between Fairfield (15-5) and Boston U (8-10) (played at Princeton) on Friday at noon in the first game at Bedford Field.
Liberty will be making its sixth appearance in the NCAA Tournament in the 15-year history of the program. The Lady Flames have qualified for the NCAA Field Hockey Championship in four of the last five years.
The Lady Flames earned the BIG EAST's automatic bid after winning today's title game 2-1 over UConn at the Liberty Field Hockey Field. Lou Combrinck, the BIG EAST Championship Most Outstanding Player, scored the game winner in overtime. Combrinck was joined on the BIG EAST All-Tournament team by Diane Saint Martin, Dara Semmartin and Morena Giacosa.
The Lady Flames are currently No. 6 in the NCAA Field Hockey RPI listing. Liberty won both the outright BIG EAST regular season title (7-0 record) and BIG EAST Championship crown.
Friday's first round matchup will be a rematch of the 2023 NCAA Sweet 16 contest between Liberty and Syracuse played at Duke. The Orange prevailed 2-1 in overtime in that matchup and owns a 2-0 edge in the all-time series.
Liberty holds a 4-5 all-time mark in the NCAA Field Hockey Championship in five appearances. The Lady Flames made it all the way to the title game of the NCAA Field Hockey Championship during the fall 2021 campaign, knocking off No. 11 Saint Joseph's (Sweet 16), No. 1 Rutgers (Elite 8) and No. 5 Maryland (Final Four) to reach the national final. No. 7 Northwestern edged Liberty 2-0 in the national championship game. The 2021 Liberty field hockey team is the only program in school history to reach a national title game in any sport.
Opening round games will be played on Wednesday at two of the first and second round sites. First and second round games will be played on four campus sites on Friday and Sunday. All preliminary round contests will be on ESPN+. Duke will host the national semifinals on Nov. 21 and the championship final on Nov. 23 at Williams Field at Jack Katz Stadium in Durham, N.C. The semifinals will be broadcast at noon at 2:30 p.m. on ESPNU, and the championship game will be broadcast at 1 p.m. on ESPNU. For ticket information, visit
NCAA.com/tickets.