NFHCA Top-10 Talk: Week Two
· Yahoo Sports
No. 1 Northwestern (4-0, 0-0 B1G)
Movement: —
Last Week: 4-3 (OT) W vs. No. 6 Duke, 2-0 W at Boston College
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This Week: vs. No. 14 Louisville, vs. No. 16 Miami (OH)
Northwestern was back to full strength with Ashley Sessa and Olivia Bent-Cole rejoining the team, but it had to fight for its two wins this weekend in the Big Ten-ACC Challenge. After going down 3-1 at halftime, the ‘Cats went back to ol’ reliable on the penalty corner: Sessa insert, Bent-Cole stop, Ilse Tromp drag flick for two fourth-quarter scores to send it into overtime.
That’s where the new blood sealed the deal: Sol Martinez was left wide open in the center of the circle, and after some vintage Piper Borz stick work, she got the ball right in front of the cage to end it.
BC held NU scoreless through the entire first half, but adversity was quickly overcome in the second in the 2-0 win on Sunday.
With two more ranked opponents to come, NU continues to grow stronger at an exponential rate
No. 2 Iowa (4-0, 0-0 B1G)
Movement: +2
Last Week: 9-0 W vs. Lehigh, 8-0 W vs. Ball State
This Week: vs. No. 16 Miami (OH), vs. No. 14 Louisville
The Hawkeyes are THE story of non-conference play. Nobody expected them to tear through their first four contests in the fashion they did, but they’ve made it abundantly clear that they’re coming for a Final Four berth this season.
Dionne van Aalsum already has 14 points through this part of the season and doesn’t even lead her own team. That’s scary. Fréderique van Cleef — through four games, as a reminder — has amassed over 65% of her points total in 2025, leading the nation with 19. The pair combined for a ridiculous 11 goals this weekend, both games being multi-goal efforts from each.
Van Aalsum and van Cleef are a scary 1-2 punch for Iowa to weaponize. They are one of two duos to rank in the nation’s top 10 in goals (Clara Larripa and Abril Peroni, Richmond). The difference is that they occupy two of the country’s top three spots. Their upcoming slate, nearly identical to Northwestern’s, will give us a strong pulse as to how Iowa will measure up in Big Ten play.
No. 3 Harvard (2-0, 0-0 Ivy League)
Movement: —
Last Week: 5-1 W vs. UMass Lowell, 1-0 W vs. No. 9 UConn
This Week: vs. No. 12 UMass, vs. Boston College
You should be catching on to a pattern here: the best teams in the nation get tested early. Northwestern got its test against Duke, Iowa got its test against North Carolina and the Crimson got theirs against a hungry UConn team seeking revenge after a heartbreaking loss to Harvard in the NCAA Quarterfinals.
For nearly 50 minutes, you felt an upset brewing in this matchup. Then, the Huskies gave up one too many penalty corners, and that was that.
Sometimes when you’re in a stalemate, you need to take what you can get. No need to overcomplicate things. That’s why Harvard came out the victor on Sunday.
Much like the two teams ahead of them, the Crimson are extremely well-rounded: five total goal scorers and nine point-getters this past weekend, while Linde Burger saved six of seven shots on goal.
A sleeper on the rise, perhaps.
No. 4 Princeton (1-1, 0-0 Ivy League)
Movement: -2
Last Week: 4-0 W vs. Old Dominion, 0-1 (2-3 SO) L at No. 1o North Carolina
This Week: vs. No. 17 Rutgers, at Penn State
The absence of defense was what cost the Tigers a national championship. Against UNC, it was the complete opposite: the absence of late offense. In 75 minutes, Princeton only logged six shots on target and kept the Tar Heels around for too long.
With that said, this loss is extremely uncharacteristic for the 2025 national runner-up, and when it’s put into perspective, it makes much more sense. The Tigers were tasked with a motivated North Carolina squad that had dropped its first two contests in Winston-Salem and was red hot after a shellacking of Penn just two days previous. It’d be unfair to hit the panic button on them this early in the season, especially when they’re searching for the answers of their identity in the post-Beth Yeager era.
Rutgers presents a solid challenge for Princeton this weekend and a prime opportunity to start solidifying its offense for the higher-ranked teams it has down the road.
No. 5 North Carolina (2-2, 0-0 ACC)
Movement: +5
Last Week: 7-0 W vs. Penn, 1-0 (3-2 SO) W vs. No. 2 Princeton
This Week: vs. No. 2o Old Dominion, at Richmond
What a bounce-back weekend for North Carolina.
Question marks began to arise about who the Tar Heels would be in year four of the Erin Matson era two weekends ago. Every last one of them was put to bed.
The gates to Karen Shelton Stadium were completely blown off on Friday, and at the front of the charge was an unexpected face out of the midfield: first-year midfielder Sofia Ferri — the ACC Offensive Player of the Week who put away the first brace of her career, the precursor to her game-winning score to beat Princeton in Sunday’s shootout.
Merritt Skubisz completed UNC’s first sweep of the ACC weekly honors, claiming Defensive Player of the Week after making six saves in her 150 minutes in the cage. After splitting time with Katie Wimmer a season ago, Skubisz is in a battle with graduate student Tessa Shahbo for the starting job in 2026, and she’s bolstered her resume with a career performance against the national runner-up.
Ferri only trails Charly Bruder for the team points lead, as the pair stands as the only Tar Heels to log multiple goals on the young season. UNC has a two-way forward with superstar potential in its lap, and it could carry it far into the 2026 postseason.
No. 6 Wake Forest (2-1, 0-0 ACC)
Movement: +1
Last Week: 6-1 W vs. Ohio
This Week: vs. VCU, at App State
Not much from Wake Forest last week, as it ended up being one of the few teams in the top 20 with one game on the slate. But the Deacs did the most with what they had, as they went to five different players on the attack for their six scores on Friday. The most jarring thing on the stat sheet was Wake’s 22 shots on goal, its most since Oct. 10 of last year.
Even knowing this kind of mind-blowing statistic, the most impressive nugget from this game might be the zero shots taken by Ohio in the second half. The defense has started to saddle up after allowing Iowa to climb into the double digits in the shots category, and it’s begun to pay off in the polls.
No. 7 Maryland (4-0, 0-0 B1G)
Movement: +6
Last Week: 2-0 W at Boston College, 3-2 (3-1 SO) W vs. No. 6 Duke
This Week: vs. Towson, vs. Saint Joseph’s
Say hello to this week’s biggest climbers: the Terps.
Maryland hasn’t climbed this high since last season’s preseason poll, so this is quite the shake-up and makes the complexion of the top 10 extremely intriguing. It’s also reinvigorated the Big Ten-ACC field hockey rivalry, as the former has a legitimate case for being the best field hockey conference in the nation with four teams in the top 10, the most among any conference.
The Terrapins also ensured a B1G sweep in Newton this past weekend with their two victories, a major resume boost.
Their victory over Duke was much more impressive than the stat sheet shows — they displayed true resolve after getting punched in the mouth to start, going down 2-0 after the first quarter. After cutting the lead in half a few moments later, they wouldn’t find the equalizer for another 40 minutes and change.
They kept hammering away though and eventually got one of their four fourth-quarter shots to clank off the boards and force overtime. It was wraps from there. A signature win.
No. 8 Michigan (3-1, 0-0 B1G)
Movement: —
Last Week: 4-0 W vs. Kent State, 4-1 W vs. Vermont
This Week: vs. Cal, at Michigan State
The Wolverines did what they were supposed to do at home: dominate. A weekend highlighted by an Esmée de Willigen hat trick brought Big Blue opportunities to fiddle with the lineups they put out.
The most important thing to note on U-M as of now is their strength of schedule. Michigan doesn’t play a ranked opponent until next month, when it faces Iowa, Northwestern and Maryland all in succession to open up their friendly confines to conference play. The wins could start tallying up in the near future, but the big question is: will the Wolverines be ready?
No. 9 Duke (2-2, 0-0 ACC)
Movement: -3
Last Week: 3-4 (OT) L vs. No. 1 Northwestern, 2-3 (1-3 SO) L vs. No. 13 Maryland
This Week: vs. James Madison, vs. VCU
This past weekend was a rough one for the Blue Devils — absolute chaos. Nobody can really knock them for the valiant efforts they put up against the Big Ten. In theory, when you fire off 18 shots against anyone, you’d assume more than two find the back of the cage.
Ashley Stockdale looks like the talent that the entire nation thought she’d be with five goals through the start of the season. As a unit, however, there’s work to be done. Duke’s averaging 3.25 goals per game, good for 15th-best nationally, but ACC foes Cal and Wake Forest have been on fire as of late. If we’re in for an Atlantic Coast shootout this fall, Duke may be one of the few powerhouses left on the outside looking in on the NCAA Tournament if it doesn’t get the job done in the conference tournament.
No. 10 UConn (3-1, 0-0 Big East)
Movement: -1
Last Week: 3-0 W at Brown, 0-1 L at No. 3 Harvard
This Week: at No. 17 Rutgers, vs. Villanova
The Huskies entered the weekend seeking to make a statement against the squad that dispatched them in the postseason last year, but came away with the same agonizing pain of defeat they felt last November.
UConn seems like the bridesmaid right now, just one elite victory away from breaking into the upper echelon of the sport. With seven different goal scorers through the first four games of the season, the attack seems as dynamic as a Huskies fan would like it to be. Princeton’s on the horizon, just 11 days away. Maybe that brings their breakthrough into top-five consideration.