Montclair State Fall Sports Preview: What to Watch in 2026

Classes are about to start back up at Montclair State, which means fall sports are coming with them. Cross country, field hockey, football, men’s soccer, women’s soccer, and volleyball all open 2026 with something specific to chase, whether that’s defending a conference title or getting back into the NJAC tournament.

Cross Country

Women’s cross country is coming off the biggest individual season in the program’s modern history. Abigail Churchill placed fifth at the NJAC Championship, broke the school 6k record four separate times, and became the first Red Hawk since the program was revived in 2016 to qualify for the NCAA Division III Championships. She finished 257th in Spartanburg with a time of 24:22.1.

Churchill graduated in the spring, so head coach Rich O’Connor goes into 2026 without his front-runner. Montclair placed 11th at the Metro Regional last November, and four Red Hawks behind Churchill set career bests that day. Closing the gap she leaves is the whole story of this season.

Field Hockey

Field hockey missed the NJAC tournament in 2025 after a 5-12 overall record and a 2-4 mark in conference play. Four seniors graduated this spring, and rising senior Kasey Watson steps in as captain.

Watson has been in the program since 2023, and with the coaching staff behind her, the Red Hawks have a real shot at getting back into the NJAC tournament.

Football

Football finished 5-5 overall and 4-3 in the NJAC in 2025, in what was one of the more competitive years the conference has had in a while. Two losses stung more than the rest. Wilkes won Homecoming 24-21 on a tipped field goal in the final minute, and Rowan pulled away in the second half of the second annual Breakfast Bowl for a 38-26 win, keeping the trophy and the naming rights to pork roll for another year.

NJAC football has no conference tournament, so the regular season standings decide who gets the automatic NCAA bid. That makes 2026 pretty simple for a senior class that has yet to win either of those games: take Homecoming, take the Breakfast Bowl back from Rowan, and finish high enough in the NJAC to matter in November.

Men’s Soccer

Men’s soccer had the better season and the worse ending. The Red Hawks went 12-2-5, took the NJAC regular season title and the tournament’s top seed, then lost 4-1 at home to fourth-seeded TCNJ in the semifinals. Montclair had beaten TCNJ 2-1 on the road a month earlier.

The program has reached the conference playoffs every year since 2003 and has nine championships in the last 25 years, the most recent in 2023. Getting back to the final is the bar here, not making it.

Women’s Soccer

The women’s soccer team comes into the 2026 campaign off a season that is going to be hard to top. The Red Hawks went 13-0-6 and did not lose a game in the regular season, which earned them the NJAC regular season title. They took the tournament title too, beating Rowan 4-3 in penalty kicks at MSU Soccer Park after a 1-1 draw. It was the fifth NJAC championship in program history and the first since 2020-21. The Red Hawks advanced to the first round of the NCAA Tournament but were eliminated by Colby College, 2-0.

This season, the Red Hawks are going in with a different roster. Kylie Prendergast, the NJAC Offensive Player of the Year, graduated this past spring, and goalie Salange Bell transferred to Valparaiso University in Indiana. The Red Hawks have overcome difficult roster situations before, and this season will be no different with the rising seniors and incoming freshmen recruits.

Volleyball

The volleyball team is coming in off a season better than most people realize. In 2025, the Red Hawks went 26-5, the most wins the program has had since 2016, and finished 5-3 in the NJAC. They made the conference tournament as the fifth seed but lost 3-1 to William Paterson in the quarterfinals. Volleyball has three rising seniors leading the team and six freshmen recruits coming in ready to make a run in 2026. A team that wins 26 games is not really a dark horse, but a better seed would go a long way toward turning last year’s quarterfinal exit into an NJAC championship.

The Season Ahead

All of the fall sports are looking forward to a great season, whether they are chasing a redemption season or defending an NJAC title. Sprague Field and MSU Soccer Park are both a walk from campus, so there is no excuse not to find out.