DENVER – The Denver women’s soccer program will host nine of its 18 matches at CIBER Field at the University of Denver Soccer Stadium in 2016, 25th-year head coach Jeff Hooker announced on Thursday.

Highlighting Denver’s 2016 home schedule is a matchup with Colorado State to open the Sixth Annual Colorado Cup, an outside of the Colorado Cup match against in-state foe Northern Colorado and Summit League matchups against Oral Roberts, who finished second in the league standings a year ago and South Dakota, who finished fourth.

“We are excited for our fall schedule and the challenges it brings,” Hooker said. “To open our season with the Colorado Cup, which has turned into a great event for all six of our programs, to have the Special Olympics clinic and then to finish that opening weekend with all six teams in the state playing back-to-back-to-back at CU is great for our program and our sport in the state. We feel that we have set ourselves up well with this non-league schedule to prepare us for Summit League play and the Summit League Tournament.”

In addition to its nine regular season home matches, Denver will once again host nationally ranked Texas Tech in a preseason exhibition at CIBER Field on August 13.

Denver will begin the Colorado Cup and the 2016 season in its first home match against fourth-year program Colorado State (Aug. 19). Hooker and CSU coach Bill Hempen have a combined 51 years of head coaching experience and 604 wins under their belts. Following the Second Annual Colorado Cup Special Olympics Clinic, all six Colorado Cup teams will wrap-up the opening weekend in Boulder, with the Pioneers taking on Colorado College (Aug. 21). Denver will close out the Colorado Cup nearly a month later when the Pioneers visit Prentup Field in Boulder for the second-straight year to take on Colorado (Sept. 17).

DU concludes August with a pair of home matches against SIU Edwardsville (Aug. 26) and Montana (Aug. 28). The Pioneers other out-of-league tournament in 2016 sees the Pioneers make a trip to Tempe, Ariz., to take on a pair of Pac-12 schools in Arizona (Sept. 2) and Arizona State (Sept. 4).

Following the Sun Devil Desert Classic, Denver wraps-up its non-league home slate against Northern Colorado (Sept. 8) and Hawaii (Sept. 11). The Pioneers played two of their five extra time matches in Honolulu in Hawaii’s tournament a year ago.

After the Colorado Cup finale against Colorado, Denver heads to nationally-ranked BYU (Sept. 22) for the first time since its 1-0 shutout in Provo in 2013 to close the pre-Summit League schedule.

The Pioneers open league play with three of four away from home, beginning with trips to Western Illinois (Sept. 30) and IUPUI (Oct. 2). Denver’s third and fourth single-game weekends of the year see the Pioneers host South Dakota on October 9, before the Pioneers head to 2015 Summit League regular season champion North Dakota State five days later (Oct. 14).

DU wraps-up the regular season with three of four at home, with the Pioneers lone trip in the stretch seeing Denver pay a visit to 2015 Summit League Tournament champions South Dakota State (Oct. 23). Denver will host Oral Roberts (Oct. 21) two days earlier, before hosting IPFW (Oct. 28) and Omaha (Oct. 30) on the final weekend.

In all, Denver will play three teams that finished in the RPI top-100 a year ago, including top-25 foes Arizona (20) and BYU (22).

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