Tracey Fuchs on Northwestern's Road to Another Championship
11/27/2024 1:30:00 PM | General, Field Hockey
After Northwestern's dominant 5-0 victory over St. Joseph's in the 2024 national championship game on Sunday, head coach Tracey Fuchs joined the latest episode of NUFH Said to recap the win, what it meant to her and the team and the journey it took to get there.
Fuchs also broke down the team's many key contributors, her favorite parts of coaching this group and why her lucky folding chair isn't going anywhere.
An excerpt of the conversation is below, edited and condensed for clarity and brevity. For the full interview, check out the latest episode of NUFH Said on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Eric Rynston-Lobel: It's not often where you see teams who set out at the beginning of the season that expect to win a championship actually accomplish it. How did it feel just to be able to accomplish that goal that you had set coming into the year?
Tracey Fuchs: It was really amazing. We had high expectations this year with Maddie [Zimmer] and Ashley [Sessa] returning. And you know those are the most difficult years, because everybody knows on paper, you're one of the best teams in the country, and you have to go out and prove it every day and the consistency of our team game in and game out was amazing this year, and so many contributors and role players and it was very, very rewarding, for sure.
Rynston-Lobel: I think from my perspective as a pretty novice field hockey observer, what was most impressive about watching this team was that even in the games where you were tied 0-0, down 1-0, it still felt like Northwestern was the better team on the field, and I think it's not too often where you see a team where that's the case every single game. To see the dominance from start to finish this year, I imagine, for you is something that you take a lot of pride in?
Same Field. Same Title. 3 years later ??
— Northwestern Field Hockey (@NUFHCats) November 25, 2024
2021 ?? 2024 pic.twitter.com/kSUMT6WlaK
Fuchs: Yeah, for sure. We were so balanced on every line from [Skubisz] in the goal cage, we had a really strong defense, one of the best midfielders and then some real firepower up front with Sessa and [Olivia Bent-Cole]. Only Michigan kept us off the board this year, so I knew we'd always have enough chances to win. Sometimes they don't fall, and that's the glory of sport. But these guys did their job in every aspect: attack, corners, defensive corners, field goals, we were really, really balanced, which I think really helped us win the championship.
— Northwestern Field Hockey (@NUFHCats) November 24, 2024
Rynston-Lobel: When this group maybe comes back in, 10 years, 20 years for a reunion, what do you think that you're going to remember most about what this particular team was like?
Fuchs: Definitely the consistency and the relentlessness. We have our values: relentlessness and unity, accountability and excellence. And they just model them every day. And what a great group of people. They're going to go out in the world and do great things, and I can't wait to celebrate this in five years, 10 years and tell stories and just enjoy them as friends now.
