The postseason is upon us! In this week’s column (which is delayed one day due to my flurry of recent academic commitments), we’ll recap Northwestern’s 5-0 win at Michigan State, which secured the Wildcats’
third consecutive undefeated Big Ten season. We’ll also preview the crucial Big Ten tournament coming up later this week.
It was a solid week for Northwestern field hockey.
First, it took care of business at Michigan State, defeating the lowest-ranked team in the Big Ten by a considerable margin. And while the game started slowly, resulting in a scoreless first quarter, the Wildcats caught fire with a two-goal second quarter and never looked back, picking up the pace for a runaway victory. Coming off a 7-0 beatdown of Ohio State, NU stifled yet another opponent, holding the Spartans to just two shots and one shot on goal all game.
Northwestern finishes 2025 undefeated in Big Ten play for the third consecutive season. This year, it was particularly ahead of the field, garnering eight conference wins while no other team had more than five — a big reason as to why the ‘Cats were able to clinch the Big Ten title with two full games left to play.
The dominance didn’t stop at gameplay for Northwestern, though. The Big Ten postseason awards were announced on Wednesday, and the Wildcats cleaned up. Maddie Zimmer was unanimously voted as Big Ten Player of the Year for a second time, becoming the first multi-time winner in program history. Meanwhile, Ashley Sessa repeated as Offensive Player of the Year, Ilse Tromp won Defensive Player of the Year and Juliana Boon won Goalie of the Year. The only individual award that the ‘Cats didn’t pick up was Freshman of the Year, which went to Maryland’s Jordyn Hollamon.
Meanwhile, Zimmer, Sessa, Boon, Tromp and Olivia Bent-Cole earned First-Team All-Big Ten honors, while Grace Schulze, Laura Salamanca and Greta Hinke were dubbed as Second-Team All-Conference. In total, eight of Northwestern’s 11 players are All-Big Ten selections, highlighting the team’s depth across the board.
With the Big Ten tournament coming up, Northwestern looks to prove it was worthy of the near-awards sweep with a third program title.
Spooky Season
In a game that had little implications besides avoiding a poor RPI loss, the main trend was an out-of-sorts sequence of events.
After an unusually poor series of penalty corner attempts to start the game, Northwestern opened the scoring with a goal that the Big Ten Plus announcers weren’t even sure went in at first. Aerin Krys popped up a shot that hit the cage and went out, before Sessa deflected it back in. Minimal celebration followed the goal (perhaps highlighting the confusion), but it was a score nonetheless.
The trend of confusing plays continued until halftime. With just one second left in the second quarter, Bent-Cole saw a wide-open cage and decided to shoot. However, because the ball crossed the goal line after the clock hit zero, it did not count as a goal. This is a display of how field hockey strays away from a sport like lacrosse or basketball, where a score counts as long as you get the shot off before zero.
And finally, towards the end of the game, Northwestern was awarded a penalty stroke that resulted in its fifth goal of the contest — despite the play that prompted the corner involving seemingly little-to-no contact (at least from the replay shown on TV). Nevertheless, Sessa capitalized on the opportunity for her fourth goal of the day.
With Northwestern-Michigan State being played on Halloween, it was only fitting that the goals scored were among the stranger ones of the year for the Wildcats.
Conference Tournament Preview
With the attention turning toward the postseason, I figured it would be good to preview Northwestern’s upcoming contests in the Big Ten Tournament in Bloomington.
In a year where the Wildcats are ranked fifth in RPI and compete amongst a stacked ACC and Ivy League top national contingent, winning their conference tournament is likely non-negotiable if they want to host the NCAA tournament. Unlike 2024, when they lost to Michigan in the title game and still earned the No. 2 overall seed, losing in the 2025 tournament could have bigger ramifications.
Barring an upset, Northwestern is not going to have an “easy” opponent. After a first-round bye, it will open competition against either No. 4 Michigan or No. 5 Rutgers, two teams that it faced in last year’s tournament. The Wildcats beat Rutgers 5-0 and Michigan 3-1 in the regular season, but if the trend from 2024 continues, both postseason matchups could be significantly closer. In addition, the Wolverines — who will be slightly favored against the Scarlet Knights — are historically a bad matchup for Northwestern.
On the other side of the bracket are No. 2 Maryland, No. 7 Ohio State, No. 3 Iowa and No. 4 Indiana. While Ohio State beat Maryland in overtime this season and Indiana has the home-field advantage, Northwestern will await a possible finals matchup against Maryland or Iowa barring any upsets. Those two teams are the only teams that the Wildcats trailed in the Big Ten this year — in both matches, NU was able to pull away late. In addition, the Hawkeyes lead the conference in shot percentage (21.8%) while the Terrapins are the only other team besides Northwestern to allow less than one goal per game (0.97).
Despite Northwestern’s significant advantage over the rest of the conference on paper, the Big Ten Tournament will not be easy. But its performance in the competition will be crucial for its postseason fate.
Weekly Awards
Player of the Week — Ashley Sessa, junior forward: For the first time this year, we have a back-to-back winner, and of course, it’s Sessa after her four-goal performance against the Spartans. As Inside NU’s Pierson Strandquist points out, Sessa is just the fifth player in Northwestern history to score four goals in a single game. Although Iowa’s Dionne van Aalsum leads the NCAA in goals, Sessa has been by far the more prolific scorer in Big Ten play (she has 14 goals to van Aalsum’s nine), perhaps playing a part in why she ultimatley got the nod for OPOY.
Play of the Week: While Sessa’s reverse shot above was, in my opinion, the most impressive highlight of the week, I’ve got to give this one to Kate Janssen, who scored her first goal (and point) as a Wildcat early into the third quarter. After Zimmer’s shot is stopped, Janssen gets the rebound and puts the ball in the back of the net. The Delaware transfer has put in decent work in the midfield all season, so for her to get some recognition on the stat sheet is well deserved.
Around the NCAA
- More ACC regular season drama! With a chance to claim the entirety of the regular season title, No. 6 Wake Forest couldn’t get the job done, falling 5-3 to No. 4 Virginia. Meanwhile, a fourth-quarter and an overtime goal put UNC over Duke 2-1. As a result, the Cavaliers, Tar Heels and Demon Deacons were named conference co-champions.
- Wake Forest dominated the ACC awards announced Monday, winning the conference Coach, Offensive Player, Defensive Player and Freshman of the Year Awards. Meanwhile, Virginia’s Nilou Lempers won Goalie of the Year. Shortly after ACC awards and All-ACC teams were announced, the UNC social media account posted the rather ominous graphic shown above.
- The ACC tournament is underway, and it is no short of drama — from California’s massive food poisoning outbreak to a game delay due to a nearby plane crash. Syracuse and Virginia, as well as UNC and Duke, play each other in Thursday’s semi-finals.
- While the highlights of the week belonged to the ACC, No. 3 Harvard completed a 16-0 season, becoming the first Ivy League team to record an undefeated regular season. Still ranked third behind one-loss Northwestern and UNC in the polls, the Crimson will surely come into the postseason with a chip on their shoulder.
What’s Next?
It’s Big Ten Tournament time! On Thursday at 10 a.m. CST, No. 4 Michigan and No. 5 Rutgers will face each other for a chance to play Northwestern in the semifinals on Friday at 11 a.m. Rutgers will be a rematch of the 2024 semis, when the two teams notably got into an altercation in the game’s waning minutes. Meanwhile, Northwestern-Michigan is a rematch of the 2022 and 2024 title games, both nailbiters that the ‘Cats lost. It’s safe to say that Northwestern fans will prefer Rutgers as an opponent, but regardless, nothing will come easy.
