Ashley Sessa is already leaving her mark with USA field hockey. Her next goal? Grow the game.
The 22-year-old has built an accomplished career at Northwestern and with the U.S. national team. As she prepares for her first World Cup, Sessa wants folks to know “USA is improving in field hockey.”
Entering her final season at Northwestern, Ashley Sessa has accomplished nearly everything in her college field hockey career.
After winning the 2022 national championship as a freshman at North Carolina, the Schwenksville native transferred to Northwestern, where she helped lead the Wildcats to back-to-back national titles in 2024 and 2025.
She has earned several accolades and honors, including two Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year awards, two National Field Hockey Coaches Association All-America nods, and a spot on the 2025 NCAA All-Tournament team.
But now, Sessa, 22, is preparing for something new. She will make her first trip to the Women’s International Hockey Federation World Cup with the United States national team from Aug. 14 to 30.
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Sessa will travel to Belgium with the rest of the U.S. team for the tournament, which is held every four years in between the Summer Olympics. The U.S. begins its group stage schedule with a match against two-time champion Argentina on Aug. 15 (11:30 a.m., watch.hockey).
Sessa has 62 appearances with Team USA, including at the 2024 Paris Olympics, but she says the World Cup presents a different challenge. The U.S. team left for Europe from Charlotte, where it trains, on Friday.
“We just introduced a few double sessions, two each day, and then [we are] scrimmaging each other on Saturdays,” Sessa said. “It’s been a hard few weeks and months leading up to it, but we’re really excited to see how things go at the World Cup.”
Team USA will look to top its third-place finish in 1994, and it has a large contingent of players from the Greater Philadelphia area. Nine of the 20 players on the roster are from Southeastern Pa., and one from Ocean City, N.J.
Sessa, who played for Spring-Ford and Episcopal Academy in high school, said her familiarity with her teammates. She’ll also compete alongside current and former teammates from Northwestern in Hershey native Maddie Zimmer and Lebanon County native Lauren Wadas.
“We know each other pretty well,” Sessa said. “I’ve known a lot of the girls since I was at WC Eagles, [a Chester County-based youth club], since I was maybe like 11, 12 years old. We have a good connection, especially through schools, too … Just growing up with the girls and now playing in a World Cup with them is super amazing.”
The U.S. team medaled at an international competition this summer, earning a third-place finish at the FIH Nations Cup, hosted in New Zealand in June.
Sessa scored two goals, including a 46th minute winner, to lift the U.S. over Chile in the third place game. The forward was joint top scorer with six goals in the tournament and was named as the best player of the tournament.
Sessa hopes that the momentum the U.S. team built from its best-ever finish at the eight-team Nations Cup will carry forward to the 16-team World Cup.
“I think we have the determination to go out there and prove to each other that the USA is improving in field hockey,” Sessa said. “We have a great team and a great system that allows us to improve every time we step foot on the field.”
In addition to representing her country, Sessa is determined to make field hockey more visible around the U.S. Through her coaching venture, AS3, Sessa has hosted free youth field hockey clinics in Manayunk and Norristown.
Sessa handed out donated equipment at her clinics, and hopes to do more events across the Northeast and Midwest in the future to get more young athletes interested in the sport.
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She said the idea to hold free clinics and equipment distributions came from her mother, Tracey Sessa, who grew up in Norristown. Sessa said she remembered playing against Norristown Area High School as a freshman at Spring-Ford, before transferring to Episcopal Academy.
“You could tell the girls loved the sport, it was just the fact that they didn’t have access to the newest stick or the newest shoes to help them be able to perform,” Sessa said. “I don’t think money should prohibit your sporting abilities or for you to be able to compete in something you love.”
In addition to hosting free clinics in the Philadelphia area, Sessa has hosted a talk and donated equipment to a youth field hockey organization in Charlotte, N.C. She hopes to hold an event in Chicago in the near future.
Her goal is to help draw attention to field hockey, which has a large international audience, but remains obscure in much of the U.S.
The sports’ viewership is growing, with an estimated 10 million Americans watching women’s field hockey during the 2024 Olympics, a 220% increase from the 2021 games.
Leading up to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, the first Summer Games on American soil since 1996, Sessa wants to get more Americans interested in the sport.
“I think this is the most important time to do it, especially two years out,” Sessa said. “America is such a huge avenue for sports, and focusing on that, I think if they do it right, it could be a huge opportunity to grow the sport.”
Sessa tries to stay focused on her day-to-day with the national team and her upcoming senior season at Northwestern, but every once in a while, she lets her mind visualize what it would be like to play at the Olympics on home soil.
“If I have a bad practice day, I let myself think forward a bit and just say, ‘You know what, this is good, I’m learning something new,’” Sessa said. “This preparation will help me further in the future for the L.A. Games.
“Just having that mindset, for me, is really good. … It’s still so far away, and [I am] just doing every I can do to get better, not only as an athlete, but as a person as well, to help me grow, to hopefully be a part of those games.”