Northwestern ranked No. 1 in NFHCA pre-season Division I college field hockey coaches poll
The NCAA Division I field hockey season starts Friday, Aug. 28. Photo: Jana Benscoter
The Ivy League made a serious run at the 2025 NCAA Division I national title, but once again, Northwestern’s Cardiac Cats found a way to rally and lift the trophy.
The National Field Hockey Coaches Association released its preseason poll Tuesday, with Northwestern opening at No. 1, followed by North Carolina and Princeton.
Princeton, currently ranked at No. 3, pushed the Wildcats as hard as anyone in 2025, handing Northwestern its only loss in a 20-1 championship season. And while the Cats have lost one of their recent greats in Maddie Zimmer, they appear to have reloaded.
Ashley Sessa returns from the 2026 FIH World Cup with valuable international experience to share with a roster that also includes seasoned standout Liv Bent-Cole. Sessa scored the United States’ lone field goal against Germany in its final pool-play game before the team advanced to Stage 2 of the tournament.
Northwestern won last year’s Big Ten regular-season and tournament titles before entering the 2025 NCAA tournament unseeded.
Division I field hockey opens Friday, Aug. 28. Northwestern will host Virginia Commonwealth on Friday before welcoming Lafayette on Sunday, Aug. 30.
North Carolina enters at No. 2 after finishing last season 21-2 overall and 7-1 in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The Tar Heels’ season ended with a 4-3 overtime loss to Northwestern in the NCAA tournament semifinals.
The Tar Heels have a young roster, with 13 players who are either freshmen or sophomores. Still, several bring significant experience from international tournaments and USA Field Hockey junior squads in South America and Europe.
North Carolina opens its fall campaign in the annual ACC-Big Ten Challenge, facing Michigan on Friday, Aug. 28, and Iowa on Sunday, Aug. 30, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Princeton has a similar roster profile to North Carolina: a roster stacked with players who already have high-level international experience on youth and junior squads.
Princeton opens its season in Chapel Hill, first facing Old Dominion on Friday, Sept. 4, before meeting North Carolina on Sunday, Sept. 6.
According to the NFHCA, “the poll is intended to provide a weekly snapshot of the nation’s top-performing programs based on results, strength of competition, and insight from the sport’s coaching community. Beginning after the second week of regular-season competition, teams must maintain a .500 record or better to be eligible for ranking consideration.
“These rankings reflect the collective assessment of the designated voting coaches each week and are designed to spotlight performance on a national scale. The Coaches Polls are independent of the NCAA Championship selection process and are not intended to predict or determine postseason qualification or seeding.”
Here is the list of DI college field hockey teams with the most votes from the NFHCA’s preseason coaches poll:
20. Saint Joseph's
18. Louisville
18. Monmouth
17. Rutgers
16. Yale
15. Massachusetts, Amherst
14. Michigan
13. Maryland
11. Iowa
11. Connecticut
10. Miami
9. Syracuse
8. Liberty
7. Wake Forest
6. Duke
5. Virginia
4. Harvard
3. Princeton
2. North Carolina
1. Northwestern
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