The defending ECC champions will be tested right from the start of the season.
St. Thomas Aquinas as part of unveiling its 2026 schedule announced it will open the season with non-conference road matches against Pepperdine and USC.
This will be the first time in the Spartans’ three-year program history they will travel to the West Coast. It also will be the second consecutive year St. Thomas Aquinas will begin the season against teams likely to be nationally ranked.
St. Thomas Aquinas opened last season with two road losses to BYU. The Spartans rebounded from those early-season losses and ended the season undefeated in conference play and won their second consecutive ECC championship.
Pepperdine defeated USC in the 2025 MPSF Tournament finals to reach the NCAA Tournament for the first time in three seasons.
Both USC and Pepperdine ended last season in the top 10 of the national rankings and are slated to return multiple All-American starters.
Four of the first five matches for St. Thomas Aquinas this season will be against teams that finished last season ranked in the national coaches poll.
Along with the West Coast matches, St. Thomas Aquinas will play a road match against the defending EIVA champions EIVA and a neutral site match against Lewis.
Among the starters returning for St. Thomas Aquinas includes middle attacker David Weiss who led the nation with a 1.29 blocks per game average. Libero Ivaylo Todorov also led the conference and was fifth in the nation averaging 2.57 digs per game.
2026 St. Thomas Aquinas schedule
Jan. 9 at Pepperdine
Jan. 10 at USC
Jan. 13 at Long Island
Jan. 15 at Penn State
Jan. 16 vs. Lewis (at Penn State)
Jan. 24 at D’Youville
Jan. 28 at Fairleigh Dickinson
Jan. 31 at Princeton
Feb. 6 at Sacred Heart
Feb. 13 vs. Long Island
Feb. 20 at D’Youville
Feb. 21 at Daemen
Feb. 27 vs. Sacred Heart
Feb. 28 vs. Merrimack
March 7 at Harvard
March 8 at NJIT
March 12 vs. Roberts Wesleyan
March 14 at American International
March 21 at American International
March 29 vs. Dominican
April 3 vs. NJIT
April 10 at Dominican
April 18 at Roberts Wesleyan