Breaking down Northwestern lacrosse’s 2026 schedule

SB Nation

We’re just over three weeks away from Northwestern lacrosse opening its 2026 season at Boston College. Ahead of that, the Wildcats released their 16-game regular season schedule, which consists of nine

home and seven away contests. Inside NU breaks down this slate of games and what they mean for a Northwestern team seeking a 2026 national championship on home turf.

Northwestern’s season opener against the Golden Eagles on Feb. 6 is one of its most highly anticipated matches of the year. Aside from when it played Notre Dame — which missed the NCAA Tournament — in 2025, the Wildcats have played a Final Four-caliber opponent to begin their season for the last four years: Syracuse in 2024 and 2023, and Boston College in 2022.

Not only will Boston College be a rematch of the 2025 NCAA semifinals and a big test for a new-look Northwestern squad, but it will also be the only opportunity for NU to get a top-five win as the favorite. Ranked No. 3 in the USA Lacrosse Magazine and Inside Lacrosse preseason polls, BC is one of just two preseason top-five opponents on Northwestern’s schedule, with the other one being No. 1 North Carolina. With the Golden Eagles losing key contributors like Rachel Clark and Emma LoPinto, making them more beatable than in previous years, the Wildcats must take advantage to get a resume victory.

Almost every team on Northwestern’s non-conference schedule is a team it played last season, with the only two exceptions being Army and Stony Brook. The Wildcats last played Stony Brook in 2023, winning 13-8 against a Seawolves team ranked No. 4 in the nation at that moment. On Valentine’s Day, meanwhile, Northwestern and Army will be playing for the first time. The Seawolves and the Black Knights are two of the stronger mid-major teams in the sport, with both teams making the 2025 NCAA Tournament.

The Wildcats will host Syracuse, ranked No. 11 in USA Lacrosse Magazine’s rankings, on March 12 in a contest where star NU transfer attacker Olivia Adamson will play against her former team. In 2024, when Northwestern last faced Syracuse in Evanston, Adamson scored six goals for the Orange.

Big Ten play begins three days after the Syracuse game, when Northwestern faces Ohio State on March 15 in Evanston. But the more important slate comes a week later, when the Wildcats embark on a spring break trip — first to Oregon on March 21, and then to play 2025 Tewaaraton Award winner Chloe Humphrey and her North Carolina squad in a rematch of the 2025 NCAA Championship game on March 25. This matchup in Chapel Hill, the third consecutive NU-UNC game taking place over spring break, looks to be the only game all season where Northwestern won’t be favored to win. The Tar Heels will arguably be the biggest hurdle to the Wildcats’ goal of a home national title, so this upcoming regular season game should be a major learning point for Kelly Amonte Hiller’s squad, win or lose.

Northwestern’s home opener at Northwestern Medicine Field at Martin Stadium is on April 4, when the Wildcats host “Lacrosse Day in Chicago” and face Southern California. This event will be a doubleheader with the Notre Dame and Richmond men’s lacrosse teams, which are set to play each other before the Wildcats face the Trojans. The Fighting Irish were the 2023 and 2024 NCAA men’s champions, and alongside Northwestern are one of the premier lacrosse teams based in the Midwest.

After shattering its home attendance record during 2025’s “Lacrosse Night in Chicago” event, Northwestern’s doubleheader indicates a continuing commitment toward organizing spectacles marketed harder than the typical regular-season game.

Sandwiched between the USC game are matchups against top Big Ten opponents, including USA Lacrosse Magazine’s No. 10 Johns Hopkins on Mar. 29, No. 8 Maryland on April 9 and No. 13 Michigan on April 18. Like in 2024, the Wildcats will close out the regular season in Ann Arbor, where they clinched the Big Ten regular season title two years prior.

April 15’s contest against Rutgers will be NU’s second and last regular-season home game at Martin Stadium, while April 12’s game at Penn State is NU’s first game against the new-look Nittany Lions under former Syracuse head coach Kayla Treanor — a possible trap game after PSU upset Northwestern the last time the ‘Cats played in Happy Valley.

One thing to keep an eye on is how Northwestern’s strength of schedule will be affected by playing in the Big Ten. After the NCAA denied Northwestern field hockey a postseason regional hosting opportunity last fall, largely in part because the Big Ten was considerably weaker than the Ivy League and ACC, the same conference dynamic could come into play in women’s lacrosse.

Besides Northwestern, the Ivy League outperformed the Big Ten in the 2025 NCAA Tournament, sending three teams to the Elite Eight compared to the B1G’s zero non-Northwestern teams. Notably, Princeton and Penn eliminated Big Ten teams in Hopkins and Maryland, respectively, to earn quarterfinal berths. The Big Ten still has considerably more NCAA Tournament contenders in women’s lacrosse than in field hockey, but if it becomes the third-best conference in the country, NU’s out-of-conference performance — especially its performance against the other two top-three teams in the nation — will be emphasized.

That said, Northwestern enters 2026 as a national championship contender yet again. Regardless of who it plays, that doesn’t change.