The Yale women’s lacrosse team has announced its 2026 schedule, which features six games against teams that participated in the 2025 NCAA Tournament. The season will begin on February 14 with an away game at UMass Lowell.
The Bulldogs’ schedule includes a total of 15 regular-season games: seven Ivy League matchups and eight non-league contests. Among the highlights is a rematch against Syracuse, who faced Yale in last year’s NCAA second round. The Ivy League women’s lacrosse tournament is set for May 1 and May 3, hosted by the top-seeded team based on regular season standings.
Yale is coming off consecutive seasons reaching the NCAA Quarterfinals and has won the Ivy League Tournament in each of the past two years. In 2024, the team secured its first outright regular season Ivy League Championship and achieved a school-record 17 wins. Last year’s tally of 16 wins ranks as the second-highest in program history. The Bulldogs finished No. 5 in the final 2025 IWLCA national poll.
The team returns 22 players from last season, including five who started nine or more games. Senior defender Emmy Pascal (Lorton, Va.) will serve as captain for the upcoming campaign.
Erica Bamford enters her eleventh year as Yale’s Joel E. Smilow ’54 Head Coach of Women’s Lacrosse. Assistant coaches Molly Palella and Colleen Smith return for their ninth and tenth years, respectively, while Brooklyn Neumen begins her second season as an assistant coach.
Yale’s regular-season opponents include all seven Ivy League teams—Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, and Princeton—as well as teams from seven other conferences: America East (UMass Lowell), Atlantic Coast (Syracuse), Big East (UConn), Big Ten (Michigan), Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (Quinnipiac), Northeast Conference (Central Connecticut State), and Patriot League (Army West Point and Boston University).
The Bulldogs will play nine home games and six road games across six states: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and New York.
Yale faces seven teams that were ranked or received votes in the final 2025 IWLCA national poll: Penn (No. 6), Princeton (No. 7), Michigan (No. 14), Syracuse (No. 16), Brown (No. 20), Army West Point (No. 22), and Harvard (No. 25). Six of these opponents also competed in last year’s NCAA Tournament.
Senior Day is scheduled for April 18 during Yale’s home game against Harvard to honor six members of the Class of 2026: Megan Kitagawa, Jordan Messina, Ashley Newman, Emmy Pascal, Bella Saviano, and Sarah Waits.
For postseason play, the top four teams from Ivy League regular season standings qualify for the conference tournament; Yale has won this event each of the past two years. The winner earns an automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament—a field that includes conference champions plus at-large selections by committee—and selections will be announced on ESPN2 on May 3.
NCAA Tournament rounds leading up to semifinals are held at campus sites before moving to Northwestern Medicine Field at Martin Stadium in Evanston, Illinois for semifinal and championship games hosted by Northwestern University.
Live video coverage for home games and select road contests will be available via ESPN+, with international streaming provided through Stretch Internet. Live statistics links can be found on yalebulldogs.com along with schedule updates.
