Next in our 2025 Northwestern field hockey season preview series are individual player previews, where we’ll go in depth to break down the games of some top athletes on the roster. This year, we’ll be focusing on the team’s three returning All-Americans: Ashley Sessa, Maddie Zimmer and Ilse Tromp.

First, we’ll start with Sessa, the Wildcats’ top offensive option in 2024.

A redshirt junior from Schwenksville, PennsylvaniaTransferred from North Carolina to Northwestern after the 2022 seasonU.S. national team member for the 2024 Paris Olympics2024 Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year, NFHCA first-team All-American, Final Four All-Tournament TeamTwo-time NCAA champion

24/24 games started, 24 goals, 19 assists, 67 points (led NCAA), 63.8% shots on goal

Sessa came into 2024 as possibly the highest-touted transfer in Northwestern athletics history. After helping Wildcat rival North Carolina to the 2022 national championship, she transferred to NU in fall 2023, midway through her Olympic redshirt season. And just days after finishing competing in Paris for the Stars and Stripes, she arrived in Evanston for fall training camp.

From the start, Sessa met expectations, scoring the first goal of Northwestern’s season just 14 minutes into its opener against Maine. She had at least one goal or assist in the Wildcats’ first seven games, finding a role as not just a scorer but the player who initiated penalty corner plays for her team.

It’s hard to say that an Olympian had a “breakout” on the NCAA stage, but the game that arguably established Sessa as a Northwestern star was her two-goal showing against then-No. 4 Iowa — a 5-0 win for the ‘Cats. Not only was this her first multi-goal game of the season, but it was also the game where she produced a highlight-reel 3D (lifting the ball off the ground) goal that eventually ranked no. 4 in SportsCenter’s Top 10.

Sessa then went on a six-game stretch between Sept. 29 and Oct. 20 when she scored a goal in each contest, with multiple goals in five games and a hat trick against Rutgers on Oct. 4. In that stretch of the season, she was named Big Ten and NFHCA Division I Offensive Player of the Week twice. That momentum continued into the postseason, where perhaps her only blemish was missing a penalty stroke in Northwestern’s 1-0 loss to Michigan in the Big Ten tournament title game.

To cap off the season, Sessa scored the game-winning goal against Massachusetts to send Northwestern to the NCAA title game. In that title game, she tallied two assists, breaking Chelsea Armstrong’s single-season program record for total points. She finished the year leading Northwestern in goals and assists, excelling in every role asked of her.

It’s hard to ask more from Sessa after her production from last season, where she quite literally outscored everyone else in program history in terms of total points. Simply matching her 2024 stats in 2025 would be an incredible feat.

That said, given how much success she’s achieved in just two seasons of college play, her ceiling may be even higher than what she’s shown already. It will be interesting to see how Sessa performs without coming off a major international tournament like the Olympics (she was slated to compete alongside teammate Maddie Zimmer in the 2025 Pan American Cups but did not appear in any games). As much as those tournaments can take a toll, they were also important reps that she once credited with helping her prepare for the college season.

The players that Sessa will work with on offense remain the same, except for Lauren Wadas’ departure and the additions of transfers Grace Schulze and Kate Janssen. It will be interesting to see if Sessa continues to be ball-dominant like she was last year, or if her role will change with the dynamic of a new team.

In terms of individual success, the next step for Sessa — who has made all the All-XX teams one could make — would be conference and national Player of the Year honors. Much of this discussion is arbitrary, given that her teammate Zimmer won many of those awards in 2024. But alongside players like Zimmer and North Carolina’s Ryleigh Heck, Sessa is arguably a clear top-five player in the nation. To level up would entail becoming the best out of them all.