Kentucky Softball Unveils Complete 2026 Season Schedule
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Kentucky Softball team led by 19th-year head coach Rachel Lawson announced its 2026 competition schedule Tuesday afternoon highlighted by a program-record 23 home games and hosting the 2026 Southeastern Conference Softball Tournament, the final on-campus SEC Tournament.
Kentucky will open its season with an 11-game, eight-day west coast road swing as the Wildcats will play five games at the San Deigo State Season Kick-Off, a single game at UC Santa Barbara and close out the trip with five games at the brand new Stanford Softball Stadium, opening in 2026. UK’s home season at John Cropp Stadium starts with another iteration of the John Cropp Classic as the Wildcats will play host to Michigan State, Dayton and Murray State for a three-day event running Feb. 27 through March 1 in Lexington.
Again in 2026, the SEC will utilize a 24-game schedule with each team playing six series over a seven-week period prior to the SEC Softball Tournament, taking place in Lexington. Kentucky opens conference play at Auburn from March 6-8 with its SEC home opener coming the following weekend, March 13-15 against the Florida Gators.
In SEC play alone, Kentucky will play 24 games with 12 of those games against teams that were in the 2025 Women’s College World Series, 18 games against teams who made the Super Regionals (Sweet 16) and all 24 SEC games come against teams who qualified for the NCAA Tournament a season ago. In its non-conference schedule UK will play seven games against 2025 NCAA Tournament teams from 2025 including two games against Oregon, who was in the 2025 WCWS. All in all, UK will play 31 of its 56 games against 2025 postseason teams, 20 games against seven teams who made Super Regionals and 14 games against five teams that made the Women’s College World Series.
At home in 2026, Kentucky will host Florida, Georgia (March 27-29), Tennessee (April 11-13) and Texas (April 24-26) at JCS with road SEC trips to Auburn, Texas A&M (March 20-22), Oklahoma (April 2-4) and Alabama (April 17-19). All SEC series will be default Friday, Saturday, Sunday series with two exceptions. UK and Oklahoma will play on Thursday through Saturday to allow the teams to celebrate the Easter holiday and UK’s series with Tennessee will be played Saturday to Monday in Lexington.
In midweek match-ups, UK and Louisville will play twice in 2026 with the first edition coming at 5:30 p.m. ET on March 25 at home prior to UK’s trip to the Derby City in the final midweek of the season on April 22. Kentucky will also play UIndy, Southern Indiana, Bellarmine, Eastern Kentucky and Morehead St. at home in midweeks while traveling to UC Santa Barbara (Feb. 10), Murray State (Feb. 18), Houston (March 18), Miami (March 31) and Northern Kentucky (April 15) in 2026.
Kentucky’s SEC bye week is the last week of the regular season (May 1-3) as it prepares for the 2026 SEC Tournament at John Cropp Stadium which commences May 5 and crowns a champion on Saturday, May 9 in Lexington.
All dates and opponents have been finalized, with most times finalized and announced as well, on UKathletics.com. The SEC Network and ESPN will announce the full television schedule in early February which could potentially adjust some gametimes, so fans are asked to continue to check UKathletics.com.
Season tickets are on sale now at UKathletics.com/tickets. Single game tickets will be on sale at a later date.
For the latest on UK Softball, follow the Wildcats on Twitter and Instagram at @UKSoftball.
