2026 Schedules

[BaboNation]

Babson

Babson had a down, or at least uneven, year in 2025 by their lofty standards, that looked a lot better by year's end.  Ties to UMass Boston and Covenant were troubling, but both teams ended up having pretty strong seasons, and an uncommon three game losing streak with losses to Roger Williams, Brandeis, and Amherst, plus four dispiriting conference results - ties to Salve Regina and Coast Guard and losses to Emerson and Wheaton - put Babson at risk of not making the NCAA tournament.  They turned it around to win the NEWMAC tournament and then beat Oneonta to advance to the second round before falling to Conn College on two PKs, the second in the 81st minute.  This year's schedule is a bit less challenging than last year's.  No extensive travel to Georgia, no UMass Boston or a good Occidental team to push them on opening weekend, and they get Amherst, Salve Regina, Emerson, and Coast Guard at home this season.  Tufts away will be a big hill to climb and Brandeis and Wheaton away should be challenges again, but they get newly resurgent Bates at home instead of Wesleyan. Plus, with the exception of a couple of players on the backline, they get all their starters back, including all their top scorers (especially Yablonovskiy), and their freshman/sophomore starters will have a year of experience under their belts.

Turns out Babson's schedule that I discussed was a work-in-progress as @BaboNation suggested.  It certainly doesn't get any stronger with the additions though.

On the 9/5-9/6 weekend that I pointed out was surprisingly free of games, Babson will be traveling to New Hampshire to play the Keene State tournament against Keene State and Ramapo.  No disrespect for those two teams - they both had winning records last season, albeit barely - but not quite the same level as UMass Boston or Oxy or the rigors of travel to Covenant/Oglethorpe.  Perhaps there are more games coming.

I agree with your assessment.

I still think Sat. 9/13 likely gets filled at least. I can't remember the last time the team was in town and didn't play on a Saturday.  They can't be traveling far that weekend with a home game with Roger Williams on the following Tuesday.

Staying within the NEWMAC I'd really like to see Wheaton step up a level in SOS with their non-conference.  They should be very good again this year.

[Kuiper]

Babson

Babson had a down, or at least uneven, year in 2025 by their lofty standards, that looked a lot better by year's end.  Ties to UMass Boston and Covenant were troubling, but both teams ended up having pretty strong seasons, and an uncommon three game losing streak with losses to Roger Williams, Brandeis, and Amherst, plus four dispiriting conference results - ties to Salve Regina and Coast Guard and losses to Emerson and Wheaton - put Babson at risk of not making the NCAA tournament.  They turned it around to win the NEWMAC tournament and then beat Oneonta to advance to the second round before falling to Conn College on two PKs, the second in the 81st minute.  This year's schedule is a bit less challenging than last year's.  No extensive travel to Georgia, no UMass Boston or a good Occidental team to push them on opening weekend, and they get Amherst, Salve Regina, Emerson, and Coast Guard at home this season.  Tufts away will be a big hill to climb and Brandeis and Wheaton away should be challenges again, but they get newly resurgent Bates at home instead of Wesleyan. Plus, with the exception of a couple of players on the backline, they get all their starters back, including all their top scorers (especially Yablonovskiy), and their freshman/sophomore starters will have a year of experience under their belts.

Turns out Babson's schedule that I discussed was a work-in-progress as @BaboNation suggested.  It certainly doesn't get any stronger with the additions though.

On the 9/5-9/6 weekend that I pointed out was surprisingly free of games, Babson will be traveling to New Hampshire to play the Keene State tournament against Keene State and Ramapo.  No disrespect for those two teams - they both had winning records last season, albeit barely - but not quite the same level as UMass Boston or Oxy or the rigors of travel to Covenant/Oglethorpe.  Perhaps there are more games coming.

I agree with your assessment.

I still think Sat. 9/13 likely gets filled at least. I can't remember the last time the team was in town and didn't play on a Saturday.  They can't be traveling far that weekend with a home game with Roger Williams on the following Tuesday.

Staying within the NEWMAC I'd really like to see Wheaton step up a level in SOS with their non-conference.  They should be very good again this year.

I agree with you on Wheaton should be strong this year and want to build on their QF appearance in the NCAA Tournament last season.  I assume they will be losing top scorer/assist man Aidan Doyle (who played his first two years at D1 Stonehill) and their starting GK and several starting defenders, but they have a lot of talent returning.  Last season, they played Williams and Brandeis, but otherwise it looked like a NESCAC non-conference schedule where they weren't challenged as much. 

[Kuiper]

A couple of really interesting schedules from our in Region X

Redlands

New Redlands coach Alex Ortega has constructed a pretty ambitious schedule for his first year after leaving Amherst for the west coast.  They added SCIAC and D3 newcomer Azusa Pacific to the schedule in place of UC Santa Cruz and Nelson (AZ) (NCCAA), but the rest of the schedule is going to be a challenge.  They had to replace a bunch of one-off games from a slew of long road trips last season in Ralph Perez's retirement tour on the east coast.  The positive is that Ortega managed to do that with a schedule that basically keeps the team at home or close to home basically until October when they travel to Eagle Rock to play Oxy.  They open against Whittier in a non-conference game, which is something I haven't seen SCIAC schools do very often, if at all, lately.  SCIAC teams play all but three other teams in a home-and-away series, so it makes sense to play one or more of the single game teams again, but most teams want to play against other teams for variety or to enhance strength-of-schedule.  For the latter issue, that won't be necessary for Redlands because not only is Whittier likely to be one of the better SCIAC teams, but they also have Final Four team Emory and SCAC finalist Colorado College visiting Redlands.  I expect Colorado College will be better this year as they should have all but two starters returning and all of their leading scorers.  Redlands is returning its top scorers - Beckton and Darmanyan - and some of its starters, but it doesn't have a goalkeeper returning with any college experience and it has an entirely new coaching staff.  Non-conference should be a big test for the team.

Colorado College

Always the most fun schedule for the variety, the ambition, and the audacious travel for the most deserted of island schools in all of D3.  The first weekend of the season they host Whitworth (NWC) and Wheaton (IL) (CCIW) (which rivals Colorado College this season for the most diverse schedule).  Both those teams also play Austin College.  Then, Colorado College travels to Southern California for the return game against Cal Lutheran (SCIAC) and the game against Redlands (SCIAC) mentioned above.  The following weekend, they travel to Wisconsin to play Carroll (CCIW) and UW-Eau Claire (WIAC). The next weekend, they travel to Lincoln, NE (8 hour bus ride if they aren't flying) to play Nebraska Wesleyan (ARC) and St. John's University (MN) (MIAC).  After that they open SCAC play by flying to Arkansas to play Hendrix and Ozarks.  After 9-4/9-5, they don't have another home game until 10-9/10-11 when St. Thomas and Centenary travel to Colorado Springs.  That's a heck of a lot of travel the first month of the season!