In our final individual Northwestern field hockey player preview, we’re writing about midfielder Maddie Zimmer, the 2024 NFHCA National Player of the Year. With a resume large enough to be considered arguably the greatest player in program history, she’s returning to Evanston for one final season.

A sixth-year from Hershey, Pennsylvania2024 NFHCA National Player of the Year and Honda Award winnerU.S. national team member for the 2024 Paris OlympicsTwo-time NCAA tournament Most Outstanding Player (2021, 2024)Two-time NCAA champion (2021, 2024)Three-time NFHCA First-Team All-American (2021, 2022, 2024)

24/24 games started, 10 goals, 12 assists, 59.6% shots on goal

Northwestern made a run to the 2023 national title game and was one penalty stroke away from winning it all, but ultimately fell short to North Carolina. It’s hard not to wonder if the ‘Cats would have been lifting the trophy if they had their first-team All-American from 2022 present — Zimmer redshirted that season to prepare for the Olympic Games.

But when Zimmer returned to Lakeside Field in 2024, she made up for her absence with the best season of her career.

As a midfielder, Zimmer’s excellence doesn’t always show up statistically. Instead, she excelled through her speed and ability to weave through opposing teams’ players. In 2024, however, she elevated her game offensively as well, racking up a career-high 10 goals and 12 assists to rank second on her team and fifth in the Big Ten.

That offensive prowess showed early in Northwestern’s second match of the season against Massachusetts, where Zimmer produced a two-goal, one-assist outing. She then recorded back-to-back points in games against Duke and Boston College, setting the tone for the rest of the season.

Although Zimmer’s cumulative regular-season performance was good enough to earn 2024 Big Ten Player of the Year honors, she especially stood out in the closing stretch of the season to do what she does best — step up when it matters the most.

Zimmer’s first major clutch moment came in Northwestern’s regular-season game against Michigan. In overtime, she sprinted from midfield to the goal, beating three Wolverines to set up Lauren Wadas’ game-winning goal that clinched the Big Ten regular-season title for the ‘Cats. That performance, as well as a goal and an assist against Michigan State, won Zimmer the Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week honor on Oct. 28.

Fate repeated itself in the NCAA semifinals against UMass. Zimmer intercepted the ball from the Minutewomen attack and ran almost the entire pitch’s length to assist Ashley

Sessa’s fourth-quarter goal that sent Northwestern to the national title game. In that title game, she scored two goals and an assist in NU’s 5-0 victory, being named the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player for the second time in her career.

Zimmer received a flurry of individual honors after the season ended, most notably the 2024 NFHCA Player of the Year and Honda Award honors. She became the first Northwestern player in history (and the first player from outside the East Coast) to win the former award, and the first Wildcat since Gretchen Scheuermann in 1994 to win the latter.

As Northwestern’s hero in its two national title runs, Zimmer has already given more than enough to the program. But she’ll enter 2025 with a role she’s never had before, and one that only she will have amongst the team.

After being surrounded by her star classmates like Wadas and Annabel Skubisz in 2024, Zimmer is the oldest player on the 2025 roster and the only one who was on both Northwestern championship teams. In other words, she’s seen the program completely transform itself throughout the last five years — in her freshman year, Northwestern didn’t make it past the second round of the NCAA tournament. With that perspective, she’ll be in a prime position as a leader and someone who can reinforce a competitive culture to her teammates who have only known national success.

This leadership position translates to Zimmer’s on-the-field position. If the offense and defense were islands, she’d be the sea between them, with a capability to bring the ball from one end to another with ease. Players she already has strong chemistry with, like fellow U.S. national teamer Sessa, Olivia Bent-Cole and Ilse Tromp return, but she’ll also be working with newcomers like Princeton transfer Grace Schulze and Delaware transfer Kate Janssen.

It will especially be interesting to see how Zimmer works with Schulze, who is expected to have a “setup person” role with the ’Cats and posted four goals and seven assists with the Tigers last season.

2025 may be Zimmer’s final year, but she’s emphasized that she doesn’t want to treat it any differently. Instead, she’ll be expected to build on her previous success as Northwestern’s ultimate veteran.