2025 Schedules

[Gray Fox]

I don't know where to put this.  Bryn Athyn drops all athletics.

Post it in the topic "Future of Division III"  Under General D3 Issues"

[Caz Bombers]

I don't know where to put this.  Bryn Athyn drops all athletics.

Post it in the topic "Future of Division III"  Under General D3 Issues"

we posted about it in that room months ago when it was announced.

[PauldingLightUP]

Sectional finalist UW-Eau Claire has posted their schedule today.

Non cons against Carroll, UW-Superior, Edgewood, Augsburg, Chicago, Macalester, Luther, Bethel, St. Olaf all return.

Elmhurst in for North Park the CCIW, MSOE in for Aurora in the NACC, Wartburg in for Simpson in the ARC, and Beloit in for Dubuque in the blue armored mascots.

https://blugolds.com/sports/mens-soccer/schedule/2025

[stlawus]

SLU

Only 15 games this year.  Keeps Cortland and Geneseo as weekend opener, as well as traditional local SUNY games against Canton, Potsdam and Plattsburgh. Drops the Oneonta Mayor's cup in favor of Middlebury.  Schedule works out this year that they don't have to play Vassar/Bard on a back to back.   Women's team is playing 18 games so I think this is intentional on the coach's part.  The Oneonta tournament 7 years in a row has resulted in several high impact injuries, so a year of reprieve might not be the worst thing.

[Kuiper]

John Jay

John Jay may be one of the most ambitious of the CUNYs in scheduling teams.  That doesn't mean, however, that they are one of the most qualified of the CUNYs to play stronger teams.  As a result, their record often suffers.  This year they drop Pratt, SUNY Canton, Delaware Valley, University of Saint Joseph, SUNY Potsdam, and Montclair State (not sure why either side wanted that game, which John Jay lost 8-0).  They add Mount Saint Vincent, SUNY Purchase, Merchant Marine Academy, Eastern Mennonite, Bridgewater, and Mount Saint Mary

Lehman

Lehman lost in the finals of the CUNYAC last season and would love to go farther this season.  Drops Saint Elizabeth, FDU-Florham, and New Paltz and adds Delaware Valley, Western Connecticut, and Kean

[Kuiper]

Arcadia

Arcadia had their most wins since 2017 last season, with a 12-6-2 record, but they did it with razor-thin margins that relied upon strong defense/goalkeeping and timely, but perhaps lucky, goals, against weaker opponents.  Their strong start of 9 wins, 1 tie, and 1 loss melted away with a 2-4-1 conference record.  This year, it looks like they decided to upgrade their non-conference schedule, as much possible within the confines of scheduling deals.  They drop some of their weakest opponents, like Pratt, Penn State Berks, and Gwynedd Mercy and add Alvernia, Rowan, Eastern, and a mid-week game against DI LaSalle.

[Kuiper]

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps

Coach Cartee and CMS aren't playing around when they set up their schedule.  Last year, they went to Minnesota and took on defending national champion St. Olaf and a regional power Mary Hardin-Baylor and this year they travel to Texas on opening weekend and take on Trinity and Southwestern and then travel the next week to eastern PA and take on Messiah and Gettysburg.  If you have the money, that's usually kind of what you have to do under the NPI because playing a 12 game schedule against SCIAC teams is probably not going to get much in the way of SoS credit. 

This year, however, if CMS (playing Trinity, Southwesterm, Messiah, and Gettysburg), Redlands (playing Rutgers-Newark, Swarthmore, Virginia Wesleyan, and Christopher Newport), Occidental (playing Babson, MIT, and UMass Boston), Cal Lutheran (playing Colorado College and Whitman), and even Chapman (playing DePauw and Wheaton (IL)) are all successful on their road trips and their opponents go on to have strong years, the SCIAC's SoS might be the highest it's been in a long time.  That's a lot of solid to very strong opponents (and tough places to play away).

Interestingly, Cal Lu did the exact same Texas/PA swing in 2024 as CMS is doing in 2025.  I know Trinity routinely invites Region X opponents, but it seems like Messiah might be doing that now as well.  It didn't really do Cal Lu any favors last season, when it only got a point from Gettysburg in the four games, but it did beat CMS 4-2 a few days after returning from the road trip.  My sense is that it wore Cal Lu out and contributed to their inconsistency.  It raised their highest level so they could hang with almost anyone, but it made average SCIAC conference games more difficult because they were tired and took them for granted, which might have accounted for losses against La Verne, Pomona-Pitzer, and Cal Tech.  We'll see how it affects CMS.

[Kuiper]

Gettysburg

In part because of their central location, Gettysburg often seems to get some pretty good non-conference games.  It hasn't really helped them advance much in the Centennial recently, but they did show signs they may be in the upswing last season with a win against Johns Hopkins, a 3-4 barnburner loss to Dickinson, and a tie against Muhlenberg.  With their top scorers and starting GK graduating, though, it will be interesting to see if that was a turning point or the high point.  They drop Sewanee, Carnegie Mellon, Carthage, Penn State Brandywine, and Cal Lutheran and add Widener, Neumann, Rowan, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, York, and King's. With Lebanon Valley, Lycoming, and Southern Virginia still on the schedule, it looks like a step-up.  In conference, Muhlenberg, Dickinson, Hopkins, and F&M in a two week stretch could make or break their season.

William Paterson

After finishing above .500 for the first time since 2018 (9-8-3), William Paterson's schedule gets a bit of a glow-up, as the kids would say.  They drop Endicott, Gordon, Saint Elizabeth, Brooklyn, Keystone, Baruch, and Delaware Valley, and after easing in 2025 with Penn State Brandywine, they add Stevens, Christopher Newport, Virginia Wesleyan, Centenary, Ursinus, and Drew.

[Kuiper]

Not a full schedule, but Denison coach Brandon Bianco revealed on his interview with Simple Coach that they are traveling to the NJ/NYC area the first weekend of the season to play Stevens on Friday night and then Stockton on Sunday and then the second weekend (which we already knew about through their opponents' respective schedules) they are hosting Franklin & Marshall on Friday night and Johns Hopkins on Sunday.  Three NCAA tournament teams in the first four games with a fourth game against a team that made the NJAC championship game last season is one way to open the season after graduating 11 contributing players from last year's team.

The full schedule is now posted on its website and it's still a doozy

Denison

As previously mentioned, Denison starts with a trip to New Jersey to play Stevens and Stockton and then comes home to host Franklin & Marshall and Johns Hopkins, but the non-conference schedule doesn't get a ton easier after that.  They host Berea next, but then travel to Otterbein, host Centre, and then play Marietta and Capital away.  Conference play isn't exactly kind either.  They open by hosting Kenyon and they close by traveling to NCAC newcomer John Carroll right about when the win whipping off Lake Erie will be revving up for winter.

[Kuiper]

Southern Maine

When you're a DIII soccer program in Southern Maine and you don't want to travel too far, you're going to play a lot of the same sort of schools every year.  So, Southern Maine dutifully serves as the punching bag of Bowdoin, Colby, and Bates every year and then plays an assortment of relatively local non-conference opponents such as Maine Maritime, UMaine Fort Kent, University of New England, Husson, Thomas, and University of Maine Farmington.  This year, they drop MIT and add Rivier and have to hope they can amass more than 2 wins this season.

Rutgers-Newark

It always feels like Rutgers-Newark has been underperforming compared to its natural advantages (cost of location).  They did have a decent 11-8-4 record in 2024, but in recent years they seem to come up short compared to NJAC powers like Montclair State and Rowan.  They drop Randolph-Macon, Mary Washington, Union and Lycoming and pick up an opening game against Redlands, plus Farmingdale State,  Penn State Harrisburg, Manhattanville, Manhattanville, and NYU.