BOSTON – The Northeastern women's soccer program and head coach Ashley Phillips unveiled a competitive 2016 schedule on Wednesday. The Huskies will face teams from the ACC, Big 12, American Athletic, Big East, Patriot League, Atlantic 10, and America East, in addition to a challenging nine-game CAA slate. 

"We are excited to announce our 2016 schedule and are thrilled about the strength of competition that we will face," Phillips explained. "We are looking forward to the challenge of playing against some great programs early on. I believe the caliber of our non-conference schedule will prepare us well for CAA play."

Northeastern will face eight teams that qualified for the NCAA tournament in 2015, including the regular season opener on Aug. 19 at Connecticut, a squad that advanced to the third round of last season's NCAA Championship. The home opener will be two days later on Aug. 21 against Rhode Island at 6 p.m. at Parsons Field. 

The Huskies will also host Providence (Aug. 25), Holy Cross (Sept. 8), Boston College (Sept. 11), and New Hampshire (Sept. 18) in the non-conference schedule, before welcoming William & Mary (Oct. 7), Elon (Oct. 9), Towson (Oct. 21), and James Madison (Oct. 23) in CAA play.

In addition to the road match at UConn, the Red & Black will travel to Texas Tech on Aug. 28 for the program's first-ever meeting with the Red Raiders, another team that qualified for last season's NCAA tournament. Northeastern will also head to LaSalle (Sept. 2), St. Joseph's (Sept. 4), Boston University (Sept. 15), Delaware (Sept. 23), Drexel (Sept. 25), UNCW (Sept. 30), Charleston (Oct. 2), and Hofstra (Oct. 15).

The 2016 CAA Championship will begin Oct. 30 and will conclude with the conference title game on Nov. 6. 

The Huskies welcome back 24 players from last season's squad, including all 11 players who recorded points in 2015. 

Schedule Notes
• Northeastern will face eight teams that qualified for last year's NCAA tournament: Connecticut, Texas Tech, Boston College, Boston University, UNCW, William & Mary, Hofstra, James Madison.
• Six of those eight NCAA tournament foes advanced at least as far as the second round of the championship.
• The Huskies will take on eight teams that finished in the top-50 of the RPI last season, including five top-35 RPI opponents.
• Northeastern's meeting with Texas Tech will be the first match against a current member of the Big 12 in program history.
• The Huskies open CAA play with four straight road games, before closing the conference slate with four of the last five matches at home.