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The Huskies’ roster includes nine players who transferred, in most cases for academic reasons — with Hunt leading the way.
Jessie Hunt was seeking to transfer.
“I was looking at a bunch of different schools,” says Hunt, who has become one of Northeastern’s top women’s soccer players since moving from the University of Wisconsin in 2022.
“The co-op thing at Northeastern stuck out to me,” she says.
Hunt’s move after her sophomore year added momentum to an emerging Huskies trend. Nine current women’s soccer players have transferred to Northeastern — in most cases for academic reasons.
“Some of them are reaching out to us initially,” Northeastern coach Ashley Phillips says in reference to four players — Addison Davis, Lindsey Brick, Lauren Robles and Sofie Fox — who enrolled this year as graduate students. “They may say, ‘Hey, I’m applying to this program. Are you looking for grad transfers?’”
In short, says Phillips, Northeastern’s academics are enticing soccer players to the women’s program.
Hunt originally was studying biomedical engineering at Wisconsin. At Northeastern she has broadened her major to chemical engineering to try to create additional career options. She remains open-minded.
“I’ve been looking at med school,” says Hunt, who has done volunteer work at a hospital. “My co-op was more research-based, so that’s another avenue I would consider.”
The senior midfielder hopes to put off that decision for a few years by extending her soccer career professionally in Europe after she graduates in May.
“Jesse’s had a huge impact on our program,” Phillips says. “The day she stepped on campus, we joked that we kept forgetting she was new because she fit in so seamlessly and shined. It’s really helpful when you’re talented and one of the hardest workers — and it’s not that common.”
When Hunt entered the transfer portal, Phillips — who had recruited her out of high school — reached out. Fortunately, Hunt’s former Wisconsin teammate Faith Rosenblatt had transferred to Northeastern one year earlier.
“My cousin played here,” Faith Rosenblatt says of Hannah Rosenblatt, a high-scoring All-CAA forward at Northeastern (2015-18) who is currently a volunteer assistant coach for the Huskies. “I knew Jessie was a hard worker. I knew she would add to our team. She’s someone that I thought would fit the culture here because they think about us as more than just soccer players. They want good people and I knew Jessie would be a really good fit.”
Hunt and Rosenblatt are the team captains this season.
Hunt debuted in 2022 with a Northeastern-record 13 assists. Last year she led the Huskies with 10 assists, two game-winning goals and 22 points.
In this early part of the season Hunt has been shifted across a variety of positions as part of a larger search for team chemistry.
“Luckily in my sport, the second half [of the season] matters the most,” says Phillips, whose Huskies have started 0-4-3 amid a difficult non-conference schedule.
Northeastern begins play in the Coastal Athletic Association at 1 p.m. Sunday at Parsons Field against Elon. The Huskies were picked to finish fourth in the CAA’s preseason ranking.
A larger-than-normal recruiting class of eight freshmen and five graduate transfers (two of whom are essentially being redshirted and will play next season) were added to 18 returnees from last year’s team. Hunt believes that learning to make sense of their talent surplus will help the Huskies in the CAA — as well as in their careers after soccer.
“It’s tough,” Hunt says of the disappointing start, “but at the same time I see us having more potential than we have had [in past seasons]. And then getting older and being the one who has to get the group to step up has been a little bit of a change, but I think it’s ultimately going to help me later in life as well.”
While Hunt and Rosenblatt are taking leadership responsibility for pulling the Huskies together, they believe all of their teammates can benefit for the long term from learning to complement each other.
“My dad sent me a long text after one of our losses about keeping a group positive when things aren’t going so well and trying to get individuals to step up,” Hunt says. “How do you deal with different people’s personalities in order to optimize their potential?
“At the beginning of the year I was a little bit too focused on trying to help everyone around me — and then I was playing pretty poorly. So I think reaching your potential but also helping other people around you is something I’ve been working on.”
In pursuit of that balance between her own play and the needs of her teammates, Phillips has been counseling Hunt to not demand too much of herself.“I think both of us have gotten a lot more comfortable with not calling people out but calling them up — calling them up to the occasion,” Rosenblatt says. “Because we have the talent.”