ACU Softball Welcomes Another Challenging Schedule in 2026

The Abilene Christian softball team will face some of the sport's top teams in 2026 with games against six teams who made last year's NCAA Tournament, to go along with 16 home games on the schedule.
 
The Wildcats will face Texas Tech, Texas, and Oklahoma -- the top three ranked teams in the Preseason ESPN.com/USA Softball poll. The Red Raiders and Longhorns share the No. 1 ranking to begin the year while the Sooners are third.

Texas Tech, Texas, and Oklahoma all made the 2025 Women's College World Series, with the Longhorns defeating the Red Raiders in the championship series.

ACU faces all three in road tournaments, and will also host Texas Tech on Tuesday, March 31 at Poly Wells Field. Last season's home game against the Red Raiders shattered the program attendance record.
 
ACU will also play three other teams who made the 2025 NCAA Tournament in Ohio State, Texas A&M and Weber State.
 
"We continue to play the best, so we are prepared when we go into conference," second-year head coach Jo Koons said. "I think last year was a good testament to that. We finished much higher than projected. I anticipate our preparation for conference will lead us to where we want to be which is in the WAC championship."
 
For the second straight season the Wildcats will head to College Station for an opening weekend tournament hosted by Texas A&M, which begins its season ranked No. 11 in the country. The 2026 home opener will come much sooner than last season when ACU played its first 26 games away from Abilene. After five games in the Aggie Classic, ACU plays at Poly Wells Field for a doubleheader against South Dakota State on Wednesday, Feb. 11.
 
The next day the Wildcats visit Austin for the Bevo Classic against the defending national champion Texas Longhorns. ACU then hosts the New Mexico Lobos for three games Feb. 20-21, before visiting Lubbock for Texas Tech's Jeannine McHaney Memorial Classic Feb. 26-28.
 
A pair of games each against Louisiana and Oklahoma in Norman, Okla., round out the nonconference tournament schedule. The Wildcats will then spend spring break hopping around the Salt Lake City area with five games against three opponents (one each at Weber State and BYU, and a three-game series at Utah).
 
The WAC slate begins March 20-21 with a three-game home set versus UT Arlington. ACU also hosts Utah Valley (April 10-11) and California Baptist (April 24-25). The Wildcats will visit Tarleton State (April 3-4), Southern Utah (April 17-18) and Utah Tech (May 1-2) before playing in the 2026 University Credit Union WAC Softball Tournament at the Tarleton Softball Complex in Stephenville.
 
In Koons' first season in 2025, ACU was predicted to finish eighth in the nine-league conference but passed expectations by showing an uncanny ability to bounce back, leading to a fourth-place finish and snapping a two-year drought without an appearance in the WAC Softball Tournament.