NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Aug. 15, 2026) - Let's try this again. 

The ETSU women's soccer team will open its 2026 season with a trip to the West End in Nashville to visit the No. 5 Vanderbilt Commodores on Sunday night. The game has been pushed back one hour from its original start time due to extreme heat in Middle Tennessee and will kick off at 8:00pm Eastern, 7:00pm Central. 

MATCHUP: ETSU (0-0-0) at No. 5 Vanderbilt (1-0-0) 
DATE: August 16, 2026, 8:00pm Eastern 
VENUE: Vanderbilt Soccer Complex (Nashville, TN)  
LIVE STATS: StatBroadcast  
TV: SEC Network+ (Kevin Ingram, Sami Kincaid)  

Weather has not been the Bucs' friend to start 2026. They were forced to abandon a preseason game against USC Upstate at halftime, then had heavy rainfall wash out their scheduled game with North Alabama on Wednesday. The weather-induced schedule shuffling means ETSU will be the last SoCon team to open its 2026 season when they take the field Sunday night. 

ETSU was picked joint-second in the SoCon preseason poll, with Reagan Fitzgerald, Ella Parker, and Georgia Shields receiving Preseason All-SoCon accolades. The trio played and started all 19 games for the Bucs last season, and Fitzgerald enters her senior year in the top 10 in program history in points (39), goals (16), and shots attempted (124) and is tied for third with eight game-winning goals. 

The Commodores are the No. 5 team in the country in both the United Soccer Coaches and TopDrawer Soccer polls to start the season coming off a run to the NCAA quarterfinals in 2025. They return Sydney Watts, the 12th-leading goal scorer in the country last season, to lead their attack. Watts scored in the 54th minute of a frenetic 4-3 win over SMU on Wednesday. Their victory over the Mustangs was the 275th of head coach Darren Ambrose's career and his 126th at Vanderbilt, making him the program's outright winningest head coach. 

This is the third time ETSU and Vanderbilt have met in women's soccer. The Commodores have won both prior meetings by a combined 9-0 score. 

For more information on ETSU women's soccer, go to ETSUBucs.com.