NEWPORT NEWS, Va. -- Starting on Thursday afternoon and playing through the championship game on Sunday, Captains Field will play host to five postseason tournament games as the Christopher Newport women's soccer team welcomes in the field for the 2026 Coast-To-Coast Athletic Conference Championship. On Thursday, the quarterfinal round will be played at 4:00 and 7:00 p.m. followed by the semifinals at the same time on Friday. The 2026 C2C Championship will be played at either 10:00 a.m. or Noon on Sunday, to be determined.
Christopher Newport is the top seed in the C2C Tournament and Mary Washington also earned a first-round bye as the #2 seed. They await the winners of Thursday's quarterfinal round -- #4 Salisbury vs. #5 JWU Charlotte at 4 pm and #3 UC Santa Cruz vs. #6 Regent at 7 pm. CNU will face the winner of the first game on Friday at 4 pm and will be followed by the Eagles taking on the winner of the Santa Cruz/Regent matchup at 7 pm.
Live stats and a live video webcast will be available for all five games at CNUsports.com. Links can be found on the women's soccer schedule at CNUsports.com or on the
C2C Championship Website located here.
CNU captured the 2025 title with a 1-0 overtime victory against UC Santa Cruz on the campus of Salisbury University. The Captains have won four of the last five conference crowns and have earned the top seed in the C2C Tournament in six straight seasons.
The Captains (10-2-3) last hosted the C2C Tournament in 2022 when the home team captured the title with a 1-0 win against Mary Washington. This season, head coach
Jamie Gunderson won the 100th game of his career and the Captains closed the regular season unbeaten in ten of the last eleven games of the year (7-1-2). CNU has scored 13 goals over the last five games and have also been led by a dominant defensive unit.
Senior goalkeeper
Amy Sidaway leads the way for a defense that logged 11 shutouts in 15 games played this year. Sidaway has a 0.34 goals-against average and a save percentage over 90 percent. Playing in front of her has been a talented defense led by senior
Bella DiTommaso, sophomores
Malayah Warner and
Nora Cook, and freshman
Catie Borsuk.
Looking ahead to Friday's opponent, the Captains will play either #4 Salisbury or #5 Johnson and Wales - Charlotte. It would be the first ever matchup against JWU-Charlotte should they advance; versus Salisbury, Christopher Newport owns a 24-6-5 all-time advantage in the series. That includes semifinal pairings against the Sea Gulls in 2025, 2024, 2022, 2021, and 2018.
This season, JWU-Charlotte is appearing in the program's second C2C Championship after falling to Salisbury, 1-0, in overtime last year. The Wildcats are 8-6-2 this season and are led by Azalianna Absalom with five goals and three assists for 13 points while Hannah Greene has added 12 points on four goals and four assists.
Salisbury will enter the quarterfinal round with a 6-11-1 overall record and have won three of the last four heading into the conference tournament. Callie Chesney leads the offense with 11 points on three goals and five assists while Brooke Spadin has added 10 points on four goals and a pair of helpers.
Following Friday's semifinal round, the two victorious teams will advance to Sunday's championship game. The conference champion will earn the automatic berth from the Coast-To-Coast Athletic Conference into the 2026 NCAA Division III Women's Soccer Championship.
