The conference schedule for the Nittany Lions field hockey team was effectively set before the official announcement came a week ago, since Penn State had been the only Big Ten school yet to solidify their full regular season calendar. Wednesday's announcement solidified the full non-conference slate as well.
The 17-game regular season is set to feature nine home games at Char Morett-Curtiss Field, including three in a row to start the year, and eight road games.
It includes 15 of the 17 opponents that were on the schedule a year ago, with the only two exceptions being Villanova and Monmouth. Saint Joseph's and Syracuse, which were on the schedule in 2025, do not appear on Penn State's schedule this year.
The locations for those 15 games have all been flipped from a year ago, giving Penn State one additional home game. In 2025, they played eight games in State College and nine away from home. Unlike a year ago, there is no four-game mid-season road stretch on this year's calendar.
2026 Penn State Field Hockey schedule
Date | Time (EDT) | Opponent | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
Friday, August 28 | 4:00 p.m. | Virginia | Home |
Sunday, August 30 | 12:00 p.m. | Lock Haven | Home |
Friday, September 4 | 3:00 p.m. | Villanova | Home |
Sunday, September 6 | 12:00 p.m. | Delaware | Road |
Sunday, September 13 | 12:00 p.m. | Princeton | Home |
Thursday, September 17 | 5:00 p.m. | Maryland | Home |
Sunday, September 20 | 12:00 p.m. | Monmouth | Road |
Monday, September 28 | 6:00 p.m. | Bucknell | Road |
Friday, October 2 | 3:00 p.m. | Rutgers | Road |
Sunday, October 4 | 1:00 p.m. | Lafayette | Home |
Friday, October 9 | 3:00 p.m. | Michigan State | Road |
Sunday, October 11 | 12:00 p.m. | Kent State | Road |
Friday, October 16 | 5:00 p.m. | Ohio State | Home |
Sunday, October 18 | 12:00 p.m. | Michigan | Home |
Friday, October 23 | 3:00 p.m. | Indiana | Road |
Sunday, October 25 | 12:00 p.m. | Iowa | Road |
Friday, October 30 | 3:00 p.m. | Northwestern | Home |
November 5-8 | TBD | Big Ten Tournament | Ohio State |
November 13-15 | TBD | NCAA Tournament | Campus sites |
November 20-22 | TBD | NCAA Final Four | Louisville |
The 2026 schedule includes four teams that qualified for the 2025 NCAA Tournament (Virginia, Princeton, Iowa, and Northwestern), including both teams that faced off in the national championship game.
It includes nine teams that were ranked in the Penn Monto/NFHCA Division I National Coaches Poll during the 2025 season, and seven of those teams were ranked in every single non-preseason edition of that poll throughout the year.
Penn State's 2025 schedule notably featured 10 of the preseason top 16 teams in that poll, something that only one other Big Ten team could say.
Penn State set to be challenged again in 2026
While that may or may not turn out to be true again this year, with the preseason poll not slated to be released until late August, this year's schedule appears to be just as formidable.
From an RPI standpoint, 11 of the 17 teams on the 2026 schedule finished ahead of Penn State (No. 41) in 2025. Notably, 12 of the 17 teams on their schedule from a year ago finished ahead of them, and they still managed to beat two of them, with upset wins coming against Iowa (No. 13) and Saint Joseph's (No. 31). Both were ranked in the top 11 in the poll at the time the games took place.
Penn State finished the 2025 season 6-2 at home, after a Big Ten-best 6-0 start, but only 1-8 on the road, with the lone win coming against a Lock Haven team that was 0-14 at the time in a game that felt more like a Home Run Derby than a field hockey game, with how many goals the Nittany Lions were pouring in straight from the get-go.
To qualify for the Big Ten Tournament, Penn State must finish the regular season in the top seven in the conference standings. Their 30-year streak of qualifying for the conference tournament came to an end in 2024, and they did not make it back in 2025 either, again placing eighth out of nine teams despite going 2-6 in Big Ten play both years.
The 2026 season is set to mark the beginning of Hannah Prince's time as Penn State head coach, following her four-year run at Saint Joseph's. She was hired in January to replace Lisa Bervinchak Love, who had been on staff for 32 years and served as the head coach since taking over from Char Morett-Curtiss in 2023.
Penn State's Big Ten games, along with non-conference home games, are set to be shown live on B1G+. One Big Ten game is set to be nationally televised on Big Ten Network, although the exact game is TBD. Their 2025 Big Ten Network game against Michigan State ended up being cut off before it ended, since it was delayed due to the late arrival of an official.
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