The back-to-back national champs begin their quest for a third consecutive national title and fourth in program history. As always, more focused position breakdowns will be coming from Inside NU in the coming weeks, but for now, we take a broader look at what the roster will look like when the ‘Cats take on VCU on Aug. 28, when their season kicks off.
Roster Turnover
Losses: Maddie Zimmer (M), Grace Schulze (F), Amelia Albers (F — Northeastern), Maja Zivojnovic (B)
Additions: Maddie Epke (F), Anna Arnold (F), Eleanor
Evarts (B), Montgomery Ferguson (M), Kiera Sack (M), Caroline Kotz (M), Jess Freedman (M), Bree Moffett (F)
Goalkeepers
Big Ten Goalkeeper of the Year Juliana Boon seemed to fill the shoes of Annabel Skubisz seamlessly with a .775 save percentage — eighth in the nation — in her 1,402 minutes in the cage. The then redshirt first-year began her collegiate career with four consecutive clean sheets, two of which came against top-10 opponents in Duke and Boston College at the ACC/Big Ten Challenge in Durham.
With three years of eligibility left, it seems that Boon is the long-term answer for Northwestern’s questions in goal post-Skubisz. If things go poorly, Faye Post is next in line.
Post has only seen action in four games thus far in her career, with three appearances coming last season (none longer than six minutes) against Big Ten opponents. Experience isn’t on her side, but she will need to be prepped to take the wheel in the worst-case scenarios.
Kayla Joyce is the No. 3 in the cage for the ‘Cats, but is yet to see action in her career. The former North Allegheny goalie was a two-time WPIAL All-Star and First-Team All-State honoree and could get her chance this upcoming season.
Backs
As Zivojnovic continues to battle for one more year of eligibility after a career riddled with injury, NU must prepare to experience a reality without her versatility on the field. It’ll need to find a leader who can step up in the biggest moments of the season, just as Zivojnovic did against Maryland in the 2025 regular season, scoring the game-winner in the second half to keep NU’s perfect conference season intact.
Well, Tracey Fuchs won’t need to look too hard.
Ilse Tromp remains the leader of NU’s back line after earning 2025 Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year honors — an accomplishment that goes overlooked largely due to her overtime heroics in the national title game against Princeton. 35 points is nothing to scoff at, but what’s most impressive about Tromp is her ability to kickstart transition offense with her suffocating defense.
Emilie Kirschner, a redshirt sophomore who was part of the core of Northwestern’s back line in 2025, may be inserted into the starting lineup permanently after building upon her All-Big Ten Freshman-worthy 2023 year, highlighted by a defensive save against Indiana. Kerry McCormick was also part of that core last year, and it will be interesting to see how Fuchs utilizes her in 2026.
Elanor Evarts is an incoming first-year player who could make an immediate impact. The Austin, Texas native was named a top-100 player by Max Field Hockey in June of 2023, and in a world without Zivojnovic, it’d surprise nobody if she gets minutes off the bench upon her arrival to Evanston.
Forwards
The glaring hole in the attack, which needs no explanation, is the absence of one of the sport’s all-time greats in Maddie Zimmer — two-time Honda Award recipient and an All-Big Ten First Team selection all five years of her career. Luckily for the ‘Cats, they still have a program legend on their roster: Ashley Sessa.
Sessa is the reigning Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year and was the nation’s fourth-leading goal scorer last year with 22, nearly replicating her historic 67 point season in 2024.
But here’s a question for NUFH that it hasn’t needed to answer to in a while: who will be the facilitator? For the past five years, that duty has belonged to Zimmer, who relegated some of the workload to Grace Schulze a season ago. The Wildcats now have a hole in that spot with both of their absences in 2026.
Enter Bree Moffett, a staple on Team USA’s U16 and U18 rosters and quite possibly the greatest player in Smyrna High history, leading the program to its second even state title in her senior season en route to Division I Player of the Year honors. After captaining one of the best programs in the country, Moffett’s impact on the Wildcats could be integral to their production.
First-Team All-Big Ten member Olivia Bent-Cole is back for her senior season as well, and is seemingly the No. 2 option on the attack. Her vision was A+ in 2025, as she logged a career-high 10 assists. It’s time for Bent-Cole to step up even more, however, and be as aggressive with the ball in her stick as she was in her first season in purple and white.
