SC Women’s 2026 Top 25

The 2026 Women’s Top 25 – Week Seven

SC Ranks	Up/Down	Team	Conference	Record
1	Same	Washington StL	University AA	7-0	The standard. Official numbers still show them at ~6.4 goals per game and a 0.00 GAA through the early slate. That is not a “good start.” That is a team playing a different sport from most of DIII. The question is no longer whether they dominate non-conference. It is whether anyone in the UAA (Chicago, Rochester, Case, Carnegie Mellon) can make them play a second half they don’t control. Until someone does, they sit alone.
2	1	Chicago	University AA	6-0	Amy Reifert’s program does not do accidental 6-0 starts. The California swing and the Wheaton date are the kind of tests that separate “ranked” from “contender.” Annabel Edwards sitting among the national assist leaders is the connective tissue. UAA play in October is when this ranking either hardens or gets revised.
3	(1)	Tufts	NESCAC	3-0-2	Defending NESCAC pedigree, but the record is the tell: they are not steamrolling. A 2-0 win at Wesleyan is real. A 1-1 with Trinity at home is a reminder that NESCAC points are expensive this year. They still have the roster to win the league and make a deep NCAA run. They do not have the margin of error WashU does. Midweek at MIT will say more than any poll.
4	3	Washington & Lee	Old Dominion AC	5-0	Cleanest ODAC start on the board: 7-0 at Southern Virginia, 3-1 over William Smith, 1-0 at Christopher Newport. That CNU result is the one that matters. They look organized, not flashy. If the Generals keep winning 1-0 and 3-0 games in conference, they are a legitimate national seed, not just a regional favorite.
5	5	Rochester NY	University AA	6-0	The most under-discussed attack in the country right now. Delia McMullen (8 goals) and Sydney Holmes (6 assists) are producing at a national-leader clip, and the GAA sits with the elites (~0.17). 5-1 at Lycoming and 2-0 at Cortland is not cupcake work. They host William Smith this week. That game is a measuring stick for whether this is a UAA title team or a very good September.
6	Same	WI LaCrosse	Wisconsin IAC	7-0	WIAC sides that start 7-0 usually get dismissed until November. Don’t. The GAA is elite and they already took a Kentucky trip and came home clean. The schedule gets more local from here. The question is simple: can they keep a clean sheet when the opponent can actually keep the ball?
7	(3)	Wesleyan CT	NESCAC	6-1	The loss is the story and also the résumé piece: they dropped one to Tufts and kept winning. That is how NESCAC teams announce they belong in the top 10 instead of the “tough conference, mid-tier” pile. If they take care of the rest of the middle of the league, they’re an at-large lock.
8	1	MIT	NE W&M	7-0-1	Arianna Doss is among the national assist leaders for a reason. 7-0-1 with a NEWMAC/NE schedule that is better than people admit. The upcoming date with Tufts is the first game that will tell us if this is a top-five side or a very good 8–12 team. Engineers usually peak when the ball has to be moved, not just kicked.
9	6	N Central IL	Ill & Wisc	7-0	Undefeated and sitting in a conference that does not get national TV. That’s the whole profile. They will need a signature non-conference or a statement UAA-adjacent result (they play Chicago later) before the selection committee treats 7-0 from Naperville the same as 7-0 from St. Louis. Until then, they are the team you do not want in your regional.
10	(5)	Williams	NESCAC	4-1	The Ephs always look better in October than September. The 4-1 record in NESCAC is the tax you pay for playing Tufts, Wesleyan, Colby, and Hamilton in a three-week window. One loss does not drop them out of the NCAA conversation. Two more would.
11	Same	Rowan	New Jersey A.C.	4-0	Highest scoring offense in the NJAC and one of the highest in the country (~4.75 gpg). 4-0 with that volume means they are not grinding 1-0 games; they are ending them. The NJAC is deep enough this year (TCNJ, others) that an unbeaten conference run would put them in the top eight nationally, not just the top 15.
12	1	Colby	NESCAC	5-1	The one NESCAC team that has already taken a bite out of the upper half. A 5-1 mark in that league in late September is not luck. They are organized, they travel, and they do not give up cheap goals. Watch how they handle the next two conference weekends. That’s the NCAA résumé.
13	(5)	Case Western	University AA	5-2	The two losses keep them honest. UAA teams that sit 5-2 in September are usually still alive in November because the conference itself is a gauntlet. They have the athletes. What they have not shown yet is a result that makes a committee member circle the name. October in the UAA will decide if 13 is too low or too kind.
14	5	College of NJ	New Jersey A.C.	4-0-1	Same NJAC problem/opportunity as Rowan: win the league and you’re in. The draw is the only blemish. They are the more controlled of the two New Jersey sides. If they stay organized through October, this is a 10-seed type of team, not a 14.
15	8	Trinity TX	SAA	5-0	SAA favorite playing like it. High-event offense (among the national leaders in goals per game). The SAA does not offer weekly ranked tests, so Trinity’s seeding will depend on how ugly they make the conference tournament look. 5-0 is the floor, not the ceiling.
16	5	Hamilton	NESCAC	4-1-1	Classic NESCAC middle-upper: good enough to beat almost anyone on the schedule, not yet proven against the top two. The draw and the loss are both useful data. They will be in the NCAA conversation if they finish top four in the league. They will be out of it if they slip to sixth.
17	(1)	Vassar	Liberty League	3-0-2	Undefeated, two draws, Liberty League. That profile usually means “hard to beat, not yet a killer.” Official poll has them inside the top 10; your 17 is the skeptical read, and it’s defensible until they beat a William Smith or Rochester-level side rather than sharing points with them. The next three weeks decide which ranking was right.
18	4	Hartford	C of New England	4-0-1	CNE side that has not been punched in the mouth yet. The draw is the only evidence they can be gotten at. If they keep the sheet clean through October they become a dangerous at-large. If a mid-table CNE team takes points, they slide fast. That’s the life of a new-ish national name.
19	NR	Calvin	Michigan IAA	4-1	Michigan Intercollegiate, one loss, still producing. Chicago is on the schedule this week. That is the game that either validates this ranking or exposes it. Calvin has been a tournament team often enough that 4-1 should not surprise anyone. A result against a UAA side would change how people talk about them.
20	4	Hobart & Smith	Liberty League	4-2	Two losses already. That is why they’re 20 and not 12. The talent is still Liberty League elite; the results say they are beatable in a way they usually aren’t in September. Rochester this week is a chance to stop the slide or confirm it.
21	NR	Azusa Pacific	Southern Cal IAC	4-0-2	The West Coast résumé problem: the record is clean, the names on the schedule are not the ones committees lose sleep over. Two draws suggest they can be held. They need a result that travels east on paper. Until then they are a regional problem, not a national one.
22	NR	Carnegie Mellon	University AA	4-1-1	UAA depth piece. High-event attack (tied near the top nationally in scoring) with one loss and one draw. That is exactly what a 20–25 team from that conference looks like in Year One of a rebuild or Year Two of a reload. October against Chicago/WashU/Rochester will move them 10 spots in one direction or the other.
23	(6)	Lynchburg	Old Dominion AC	6-0	ODAC, unbeaten, sitting behind W&L in the same league. That is the ranking logic: same conference, slightly less impressive résumé so far. If they take a result off the Generals, this number looks foolish. If they don’t, 23 is about right until the conference tournament.
24	NR	Messiah	Mid Atlantic	3-1-2	The name still carries. The 3-1-2 does not. Two draws and a loss in September is not how Messiah teams usually introduce themselves. They have the coaching and the culture to go on a 10-game run starting now. They have not earned the benefit of the doubt they used to get automatically.
25	(13)	Johns Hopkins	Centennial	4-1-2	Centennial, one loss, two draws. That is a team that is in every game and finishing too few of them. Hopkins in the 20s is the correct September posture. A four-game winning streak in October puts them in the at-large mix. Another draw-heavy stretch leaves them watching Selection Monday.
					Dropped from Last Week
					Pomona-Pitzer (was 14)
					Ithaca (was 18)
					Emory (was 20)
					Puget Sound (was 25)
					Biggest movers: Trinity +8 and North Central +6 on results; Hopkins −13 is the biggest drop of the week. Rochester, Hamilton, and TCNJ are the climbers that match their on-field performance.