It’s the holiday season, and 2025 is about to come to a close. In a slow news week without many Northwestern sports games and the GameAbove Sports Bowl still a while away, Inside NU wanted to take some time to reflect on the last five years of Wildcat sports.
In the 2020s, Northwestern won five NCAA championships, produced nine Big Ten title-winning teams and two Honda Award winners, made four March Madness appearances across men’s and women’s basketball and won two bowl games (and possibly one more
on Dec. 26). And the decade is only halfway done.
To commemorate this decade reaching its halfway mark, we wanted to recognize all the athletes who helped make Northwestern sports history in the past five years. So with that, we present our top 10-ranked Northwestern athletes of the 2020s, so far.
Also receiving votes: Annabel Skubisz, field hockey (7); Brooks Barnhizer, men’s basketball (5); Bente Baekers, field hockey (5); Daniel Svärd, men’s golf (4); Lauryn Nguyen, women’s golf (4); Karen Wang, fencing (3); Jordyn Rudd, softball (2); Nick Martinelli, men’s basketball (2); Ilse Tromp, field hockey (1)
10. Dianna Lee, women’s golf (9 points)
Although she may sit in the 10-hole, Lee’s heroics as a golfer will be long remembered and have earned her a rightful spot on this Top 10 list. Lee was a highly-touted high school recruit and showed why in her first season with the team, winning Big Ten Freshman of the Year after three top-1o finishes throughout the year. Despite some bumps and bruises along the way, Lee continued to show flashes of dominance in her sophomore and junior seasons. But she finally put it all together in the NCAA Championships, putting on an all-time performance last May by beating No. 2 Kiara Romero (Oregon) and No. 7 Andrea Revuelta (Stanford) in back-to-back days to clinch a national championship for the Cinderella team in NU. Although she is already off to a good start in her senior season this year, Lee will undoubtedly be remembered for her clutch final put that cemented Northwestern in the history books for good.
— Miguel Muñoz
9. Rachel Lewis, softball (23 points)
A five-year starter for Northwestern’s softball team, Lewis was a sure-handed second baseman and a clear star athlete from Day One. In her first season with the program, she started every game and hit 64 RBIs on her way to All-B1G First Team and All-America Second Team selections in 2018. She remained dangerous with the bat throughout her time with the Wildcats, finishing among the best on the team in average, slugging and OPS every year she was there. Where Lewis shone most, though, came in her final two years with the program. After getting over the COVID-19 hump, Lewis was a team leader and showed it on the field, too: after earning unanimous First Team All-Big Ten and Defensive All-Big Ten in her true senior season, she capitalized on a fifth year with an immaculate final season. After leading the Big Ten in home runs, slugging percentage, RBIs, runs scored, walks and OPS, Lewis was named a 2022 NFCA First Team All-American and Big Ten Player of the Year. The program reached its heights in large part due to her play, going 45-13 and making the Women’s College World Series.
— Miguel Muñoz
8. Peter Skoronski, football (26 points)
Although he was part of some of the less impressive teams towards the tail end of the Pat Fitzgerald era, Skoronski served as an immediate standout for the football program. Coming out of high school as a four-star recruit and the fourth-highest rated center in the country, the Park Ridge, Ill. native looked like a natural from the jump. In his first collegiate season, he started every game on his way to all-B1G Second Team honors. That success would only multiply itself in the coming years; although NU was an abysmal 4-20 over the following two seasons, Skoronski continued to rack up his personal accomplishments. After earning All-B1G honors again in his sophomore season, he popped up all over scout boards after earning unanimous All-American honors and becoming the first-ever NU player to win the Rimington-Pace Big Ten Offensive Lineman of the Year. After eventually being selected with the 11th pick in the 2023 NFL Draft by the Tennessee Titans, Skoronski remains a reliable starter as a pro. His elite level of play not only boosted his stock but put NU on the map as a program that can develop draft picks.
— Miguel Muñoz
7. Boo Buie, men’s basketball (41 points)
While sporting an impressive number of accolades that would put anybody’s resume to shame, Buie is still best known for his role in some of the most unforgettable moments in Northwestern athletics history and was certainly the school’s biggest culture changer of the 2020s. Coming from humble beginnings as a first-year player who struggled to see the court, Buie quickly became a household name for Wildcats fans across the country with offensive outbursts beginning in his sophomore season. With head coach Chris Collins’ squad looking desperately to get back to the promised land of the postseason after making it for the first time in 2017, Buie led the charge in heading two of the greatest teams in program history. An All-Big Ten First Team honoree in his final two years, Agent Zero was a stone-cold killer in purple and white, guiding the ‘Cats to back-to-back Second Round appearances in the Big Dance in 2o23 and 2024. Between back-to-back upsets of No. 1 Purdue, his ten ranked wins and ultimately becoming the all-time leading scorer in NU men’s basketball history, Buie has a special place in all Northwestern fans’ hearts that puts him up there with the all-time greats.
— Miguel Muñoz
6. Ryan Deakin, wrestling (43 points)
Deakin’s Northwestern wrestling squad didn’t experience the same amount of team success as many of the other athletes on this list, but he more than makes up for it with his individual accolades. His crowning achievement came in 2022, when he won the NCAA championship in the 157-pound category, becoming the first Wildcat wrestler to win a title since 2014. But if it wasn’t for COVID-19, he may have been able to capture another, as he finished the 2019-20 season with a 21-0 record and had been the No. 1 seed heading into the NCAA championships before the competition got cancelled due to the pandemic. That year, he was also one of eight finalists for the Hodge Trophy, given annually to the best college wrestler. On top of that, he also won three consecutive Big Ten titles spanning from 2020 to 2022, the cherry on top of one of the most stacked individual resumes from an NU athlete this decade.
—Yanyan Li
5. Veronica Burton, women’s basketball (54 points)
Although some younger Wildcat fans may view the women’s basketball program as one of the more underwhelming ones in NU’s current athletic landscape, it wasn’t long ago that Northwestern was towards the top. Before the most recent streak of three straight single-digit-win seasons, Burton was part of one of the most dominant stretches in program history.
Coming into Evanston as one of the most heralded high school prospects in her class, Burton made an immediate impact: starting all 31 games as a first-year, she averaged nearly nine points per game and 3.6 assists. More importantly, she was a defensive menace from the get-go, leading the B1G in steals. In her sophomore campaign, she continued to grow, averaging 11.6 points and leading the team in assists at 5.1 per game. Her two-way ability only expanded more, too, as Burton again led the conference in steals on her way to earning the 2020 Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year honor. Despite a dominant 26-4 season, NU’s championship hopes were tragically cut short due to COVID. Returning as an upperclassman a year later, Burton looked hungry for more, repeating as the Defensive Player of the Year and even earning First Team All-Big Ten honors. Most notably as a junior, her offensive ability exploded, as she skyrocketed to over 16 points per contest and helped NU to a No. 7 seed in the NCAA Tournament. And as a team captain in her fourth and final year, Burton continued her offensive dominance — she averaged 17.6 points per game — and secured herself as a great with performances like her double-double in a win over No. 4 Michigan. That season, she was named a 2022 AP Third-Team All-American.
After four impressive seasons with the ‘Cats, Burton moved on to the pros, getting drafted as the seventh overall pick by the Dallas Wings. After three seasons in Texas, she’s now playing the best basketball of her professional career with the Golden State Valkyries. With a trophy room full of accolades and countless memorable moments, the four-year starter is undoubtedly one of the greatest Northwestern athletes this decade.
— Miguel Muñoz
4. Danielle Williams, softball (56 points)
This decade of Northwestern athletics cannot be discussed without mentioning the softball team, and Williams was the driving engine. Her success began in the 2010s, when she was named the 2019 NFCA National Freshman of the Year, but the bulk of her legacy was established after 2020.
As a Wildcat, Williams led Northwestern to 2022 and 2023 Big Ten regular-season championships, as well as the 2023 Big Ten Tournament title (where she was named Tournament MVP). She was a four-time First-Team All-Big Ten honoree, the 2022 Big Ten Pitcher of the Year and a 2022 NFCA First-Team All-American. But perhaps her most memorable legacy will be the mileage she put up as Northwestern’s ace and how much team success she brought with her arm. In 2022, she pitched a combined 33.1 innings across three games against Arizona State in the Super Regionals, sending Northwestern to its first Women’s College World Series since 2007. She played a similar role in 2023, pitching a bulk of Northwestern’s innings until the end of the Super Regionals — where the ‘Cats were just one win away from a repeat WCWS appearance.
Sure, Williams was surrounded by stacked teams in both of her Big Ten-winning seasons. But the effort and success she brought for Northwestern inning after inning was the most defining part of that era.
—Yanyan Li
3. Madison Taylor, lacrosse (69 points)
Taylor is one of just two active Northwestern athletes on this list, and yet she’s the clear third-place pick, receiving third-place votes from six different writers. Much of her collegiate legacy hinges on her upcoming senior season, which will be her final chance to win a Tewaaraton Award and also a golden opportunity to lead Northwestern to a historic ninth national championship on its home turf.
Even with a season left to determine where she ranks on Northwestern’s list of all-time greats, Taylor already has a laundry list of accomplishments from her time in Evanston. Most of them came from the 2025 season, where she was NU’s only superstar attacker and led the team to a national championship appearance. She recorded a mind-boggling 109 goals and 49 assists, shattering the NCAA Division I single-season record in the former category. Taylor was the favorite to win the Tewaaraton Award for most of the season, being named a Tewaaraton finalist and Big Ten Attacker of the Year, but lost out to North Carolina’s Chloe Humphrey in one of the closest races in recent memory.
Taylor put Northwestern’s offense on her back last season, but her honors extend beyond that. She was also a Tewaaraton finalist in 2024, leading Northwestern in points and earning First-Team All-American honors. In 2023, she won Big Ten Freshman of the Year and tied Izzy Scane as the leading scorer with four goals in the NCAA championship game.
—Yanyan Li
2. Izzy Scane, lacrosse (91 points)
With a similar amount of individual accolades but more championship success, Maddie Zimmer edges out Scane on this list. But the gap between them is a lot smaller than the poll shows — had Northwestern closed out the fourth quarter properly against Boston College in the 2024 NCAA title game (where Scane scored nearly all of NU’s second-half goals), this conversation could have looked way different. I’d even go as far as arguing that Scane would be a 1b rather than a No. 2 ranking here, but nonetheless, she received a second-place vote from nine writers and one first-place vote.
Scane’s crowning achievement as a Northwestern athlete was leading the Wildcats to their first national championship in 11 years in 2023, being named the Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Tournament that year. She also won the 2023 and 2024 Tewaaraton Awards (given to the top player in college lacrosse) and broke the Division I all-time goals record and Big Ten points record (ranking second all-time in Division I) in her final season. On the Big Ten level, she’s a three-time Attacker of the Year and three-time conference tournament MVP.
Surely, Scane is one of the greatest players to ever compete in women’s college lacrosse. But on this list, she had the misfortune of competing against someone who could say the same about herself in another sport.
—Yanyan Li
1. Maddie Zimmer, field hockey (99 points)
Scane was probably the leader for that No. 1 spot at the beginning of the decade, and up until this season, the debate of who had a more successful career between Zimmer and Scane was still arguably a toss-up. But after Zimmer recently led Northwestern field hockey to its third national title, she earned the top spot on this list in a landslide victory, earning the first-place vote of all but one participating writer.
Zimmer is a three-time NCAA champion and a three-time NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player — a resume that no other Northwestern athlete has, not even members of NU’s lacrosse teams that won eight championships between 2005 and 2012. On top of that, she’s a two-time Big Ten Player of the Year, five-time First-Team All-Big Ten selection, soon-to-be five-time NFHCA All-American and the 2024 NFHCA National Player of the Year winner. She’s likely the runaway favorite to win her second NPOY award this coming Thursday, being one of the five regional POTY winners in contention for the title. And on top of all that, she was named a U.S. Olympian as a college student.
With her college career now wrapped up, Zimmer leaves Evanston with one of the most stacked resumes a Northwestern athlete could have, as the X-factor towards the field hockey team’s rise to the top. It’s a no-brainer that she tops this list.
—Yanyan Li
