Northwestern field hockey is officially back.
And already back to its national championship form.
The ‘Cats rolled through the first two games of their schedule, putting up seven goals in the span of two days to defeat Richmond and VCU.
In NU’s season opener at Crenshaw Field, Tracey Fuchs immediately began to exercise some new weapons in her starting lineup: Princeton graduate transfer Grace Schulze — who had a huge role in the matchup on Sunday — sophomore Laura Salamanca, and a returning Maja Zivojnovic.
It took a bit for this lineup to gel, as the offense was held scoreless in the first quarter, only being able to get two shots and one penalty corner in the period despite having possession for the majority of the 15 minutes.
The first notable moment for the ‘Cats was Juliana Boon’s first collegiate save at the beginning of the second quarter, denying Jess McMeeking at the 18:03 mark.
NU would miss the first three shots of the period, but the fourth found the back of the cage for the first score of the game. 25 minutes into the contest, Ilse Tromp pushed the ball to Salamanca downfield, who took the ball inside the 25 and found Schulze for the goal.
The rest of the quarter was silent for both squads. Northwestern went into the half with a 1-0 advantage.
The first 30 seconds into the second half gave us a familiar sight: Maddie Zimmer to Ashley Sessa for a score. Zimmer brought the ball down the end line and towards the goal, drawing Spider goalie Amanda Cimillo out from the pipes. The grad student then popped the ball up to Sessa, who tapped it into a wide open net to double the Wildcat lead.
If you blinked after Northwestern’s second goal, you’d miss their third.
Schulze got back in on the action less than two minutes later, getting a shot past Cimillo on a similar play to the Sessa goal just moments before. Aerin Krys put the finishing touches on a 4-0 victory with the final score of the game — and the first goal of her career — with 21 minutes left to go.
Boon’s first collegiate contest didn’t bring much action to her, as she only had to make three saves on the day. She didn’t need to make any the next day against the Rams.
To open up Monday’s matchup, Krys notched her second goal of the 2025 season. NU didn’t score again until the second half, where Zivojnovic netted her first goal since October 18 of last year. Krys and Sessa were credited with the assists.
In the fourth quarter, Ella Kokinis capped off the Northwestern win with her first goal of the season with six minutes remaining. She was assisted by Piper Borz.
Northwestern backs shut down the Rams offense, only allowing one shot in 60 minutes on Monday — a far cry from VCU’s 15.4 shots per game in 2024.
It’s fair to say the Wildcats are ready for their first two ranked matchups of the year. The ‘Cats travel to Durham this coming weekend for the first of two top-10 matchups, facing No. 5 Duke on Friday and No. 8 Boston College on Sunday.
