How Ashley Sessa took Northwestern field hockey by storm

Sessa wasn’t done after playing in the Paris Olympics. Now, the 2024 Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year prepares to be an X-factor for Northwestern during the NCAA Tournament.

In mid-September against No. 4 Iowa, the then-No. 1 ranked Northwestern field hockey team had a comfortable 2-0 lead in the third quarter. But the offensive momentum didn’t stop for the Wildcats, as the ball once again found the stick of sophomore forward Ashley Sessa, the team’s newest star transfer. Surrounded by three defenders, Sessa turned 180 degrees, lifted the ball, dribbled it with her stick toward the goal and hit it in the net without touching the ground.

Done in one swift motion, it was a goal unlike any other. To those watching, it was an out-of-this-world type play. But to Sessa, it was just something that happened.

“I don’t think I ever scored like that [before],” Sessa said, recalling her goal against the Hawkeyes. “And I couldn’t tell you how I did it or what I was thinking of in the moment, it just kind of comes to you.”

Sessa finished the Sept. 20 game with two goals, as the Wildcats gave their biggest conference rival a 5-0 beatdown — Iowa’s worst loss since 2012. Later that day, after being contacted by her teammates through social media messages, SportsCenter ranked her goal as No. 3 in its daily rendition of the top 10 plays in sports.

At that point in the season, Sessa had never set foot in a Northwestern class, nor did she know the words to the school’s fight song. And yet, she was already one of NU’s best athletes.

“She has a lot of tools in her toolbox — a great reverse, a great forehand,” Northwestern coach Tracey Fuchs said of Sessa’s shot-making. “Sometimes she gets too fancy, but that’s putting her own spice on it. But it’s always good because the goalie never knows what to expect when [Sessa] has a spot.”

Sessa arrived in Evanston with a lot of baggage. She started on a 2022 North Carolina team which went undefeated and won a national title. At age 20, she was the youngest member of the 2024 U.S. Olympic Field Hockey team. But showing out and scoring a highlight reel-worthy goal against the program’s biggest rival turned her into a Northwestern star, and set the stage for her dominance throughout the season.

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When Sessa was 14, before NCAA rules prevented athletes from entering the recruiting process prior to their junior year of high school, she committed to the University of North Carolina. She had only toured UNC and Maryland but was immediately set on heading to the most decorated collegiate field hockey program in history.

Sessa, who first played for the U.S. Senior National team at age 16, saw immediate success in Chapel Hill. She started every game her freshman season, tallying nine goals and eight assists to help the Tar Heels to their fourth national title in five years. But when it was all said and done, Sessa wanted a change of scenery, realizing that her choice back in middle school may not have been right for her as a college student.

“When I was 14 I was really young, when you turn 18 or 19 you’re going to be a different person and you’re going to want change,” Sessa said. “I love [North Carolina] don’t get me wrong, but [it was about] being able to go out and see other places. I was 14, I couldn’t even drive a car yet.”

So Sessa entered the transfer portal two days before it closed, after finishing her first year of classes at UNC. Because she was redshirting the entire 2023 season to help Team USA qualify for the Olympic Games, she had all of the fall to tour schools.

Initially, Northwestern wasn’t on Sessa’s radar. She visited Iowa, Michigan and Maryland, and only decided to make the trip to Evanston when her mom suggested it to her at the last minute. When she did visit, she could only be in the city for 20 hours because she had to report back to Charlotte the next day to train with the U.S. National Team.

However, 20 hours was all Sessa needed. Northwestern’s athletic facilities, small student-to-teacher ratio and team culture ultimately convinced her to spend the next three years in Evanston.

“Something I was always told about Northwestern is their chemistry,” Sessa said. “Their culture was really good, even if they’re always looking to improve it with sports psych meetings and being one as a team. There are no cliques whatsoever, everyone has each other’s back and we always check up on each other. It’s just kind of a family feel.”

Fuchs, an assistant coach for Team USA at the 2024 Olympics, has known Sessa since she was first called to the national team and became increasingly familiar with her game during her redshirt year. On an NCAA level, she scouted against Sessa when Northwestern played UNC during the 2022 National Championship game.

But to coach Sessa on Fuchs’ NCAA team was the start of a new era.

“We were very excited to get such an elite player and somebody that we thought would fit into our system here at Northwestern, both on the field and culturally off the field,” Fuchs said. “It’s definitely a win-win, and we haven’t looked back.”

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The U.S. Field Hockey Team finished with a 1-1-2 record at the Olympics, failing to make it out of the group stage. For Sessa, who scored a goal in Team USA’s opening game against eventual bronze medalists Argentina, the results were still a marked improvement from when the team failed to qualify for the tournament in 2021.

In Paris, Sessa achieved a lifelong dream and was in the same place as some of the best athletes in the world. She stayed in the Olympic Village and met athletes like former NFL player Jason Kelce and track runner Noah Lyles, eventually watching the latter win gold in the 100-meter dash. But after a year of dedicating all of her time to field hockey (if she wasn’t training with the national team, she was coaching at local clinics in Charlotte), it was time for her to come down from the highs of the Olympics and become a college student again.

Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images

Knowing that she’d have to endure a major life adjustment, Sessa chose to leave Paris five days before the closing ceremonies, making time to move out of Charlotte and visit her family before she headed to Evanston.

“When I was home, I was very tired. I was kind of sleeping the whole day,” Sessa said. “It is just a really big comedown and it’s different for everyone. I think mine was just needing space away so when I came to Northwestern, I didn’t have that lingering stress or anything from Paris. I was back to myself a little bit and that gave me the opportunity to come in with an open mind and be my 100% authentic self.”

Sessa was also ready to get back into the mode of school.

“I was actually really excited to start classes again and be in a structured environment,” Sessa said. “It makes you appreciate things much more when you have free time.”

The NCAA preseason started on August 5, when Sessa was still in Paris, so she arrived late to train with Northwestern. Despite already being one of the team’s top players, Sessa still felt like she had to adjust, quelling her typically extroverted personality to form connections and build trust with her new teammates.

Helping Sessa’s transition was the fact that her welcome-to-Northwestern moment happened weeks before she even arrived on campus thanks to a message she got from sophomore forward Olivia Bent-Cole.

“I remember when I was still in Paris, [Bent-Cole] sent me a picture of my locker right next to hers and she just said, ‘I’m so excited for you to come, the team is so excited,’” Sessa said. “That’s when I started to get really hyped up about coming. Just knowing that I have an amazing group of girls, 90% of them that I’ve never met, and being able to come in with an open mind and get to meet every single one of them.”

Strategically, Fuchs said that Sessa had to learn the structure and tactics of the Wildcats’ team. This included the specific roles of each position on the field, which differs from what Sessa faced in international play.

However, to Fuchs, Sessa’s play style fit Northwestern perfectly, which allowed the transition to speed up.

“I think she didn’t have to adjust anything,” Fuchs said. “She’s a playmaker — she loves to pass as much as she loves to shoot, and she’s really good at both. She hasn’t had to change much, because she plays right into our culture that we already have. She’s one of our top three players, so instantly she had the respect of the other players.”

That respect partially stemmed from Sessa’s experience on the international stage.

“Ashley internationally [has a lot of experience]; that’s something that all of us can learn from out there,” Bent-Cole said. “I’m really fortunate to be in this spot and to go up there and play with her. We play really well together.”

Sessa was immediately impactful as a Wildcat, scoring a goal in the team’s season opener against Maine. But when she began to stand out was the second half of the year— scoring goals in nine of the regular season’s last ten games. She’s tied for fifth in the nation for goals per game (1.05) and is second in points per game (2.75) behind UNC’s Charly Bruder. Her 21 goals and 13 assists have her responsible for half of Northwestern’s 68 goals this season and were enough for her to earn the 2024 Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year award.

But as seen against Iowa, Sessa wasn’t just scoring. She was doing so in ways that didn’t make sense at first sight.

Against Harvard, Sessa shot the ball in the net running full speed at a 45-degree angle. Against Ohio State, she pushed the ball in while not only sliding toward the goalpost but nearly colliding with Buckeye goalkeeper Abby Danson. Against Stanford, she hit a ball behind her back and roofed it to the top of the goalpost. These shots were seemingly risky, but Fuchs gave her the green light.

“We let [Sessa] be her own player and be creative,” Fuchs said. “We’re not going to limit her from doing anything…we don’t want anybody to be conservative. If you have a shot, take it.”

Sessa’s mentality reflects Fuchs’ confidence in her.

“Any shot that goes in is a good shot, it doesn’t matter how messy it is, how fast or hard,” Sessa said. “Ninety percent of goals that are going in are maybe five yards up in front of the goal and they’re scrappy. [You’ve] just got to push it in.”

Many of Sessa’s shot-making skills can be traced back to her grade school years when she played for the Pennsylvania club WC Eagles. There, she dedicated entire practices to different types of skill training such as dribbling, shot selection and shot placement, all of which show up in her game today.

However, Sessa is not just a scorer. Fuchs compliments her passing and her ability to uplift the team with her work rate — forcing immediate turnovers upon losing the ball, and putting pressure on her opponents whenever she’s playing defense. In addition, Fuchs believes that Sessa’s off-the-ball movement and her transition from offense to defense are aspects of her game that fans don’t notice.

Alongside being the team’s top scoring option, Sessa takes all the penalty corners for the Wildcats and was responsible for all three of her team’s penalty stroke goals. In other words, she’s everywhere during a game.

Heading into the NCAA Tournament, Sessa’s offensive contributions and experience facing faster-paced international competition will be key to Northwestern’s path toward the national title game. Despite being held scoreless in the Wildcats’ Big Ten Championship loss to Michigan, she still comes into the NCAA Tournament as one of the biggest attacking threats in the country.

Alongside her teammates like fellow Olympian and Big Ten Player of the Year Maddie Zimmer and Big Ten Goalie of the Year Annabel Skubisz, Sessa will be an X-factor toward NU’s efforts to win its first national title since 2021 — after losing the last two championship games to UNC, Sessa’s former team. But as long as Sessa plays the way she’s been playing all year, Northwestern will go far.

“I think [Sessa] just needs to be herself,” Fuchs said. “I don’t think she has to do anything more than what she’s doing — just be in a good position and get shots off.”