Colorado will kick off its 2023-24 athletics calendar with a little bit of history.
On Thursday, less than a week after the 2022-23 competition calendar ended at the NCAA outdoor track and field championships, CU announced the upcoming schedules for all of the Buffaloes’ fall Olympic sports.
The Pac-12 announced its full slate for women’s soccer and volleyball, while CU added the release of its fall schedules for men’s and women’s cross country, men’s and women’s golf, and women’s tennis.
The Buffaloes’ first competition of 2023-24 will mark a historic first, as the CU women’s soccer team hosts Northern Colorado on Aug. 17 at Prentup Field at 7 p.m. It will be the first night game in Prentup Field history under the facility’s new lights, and it will air live on the Pac-12 Mountain.
The volleyball team, coming off an NCAA Tournament appearance, hosts its annual Black & Gold scrimmage on Aug. 19 and begins the regular season with a pair of early home tournaments. The Buffs’ eighth season under head coach Jesse Mahoney gets going with the Buffs Invitational, featuring matches at the CU Events Center against UNLV (Aug. 25, 7 p.m.), Campbell (Aug. 26, 6 p.m.) and North Texas (Aug. 27, noon).
After an Aug. 31 date at Northern Colorado, the Buffs will host the Colorado Classic with home games against Xavier on Sept. 1 and Charlotte on Sept. 2. The Colorado volleyball team also plays three matches in the Wichita State Invitational, including a showdown against Kansas (Sept. 9), and takes on Colorado State in a home-and-home series (Sept. 14 at CU, Sept. 15 at CSU).
CU volleyball opens Pac-12 play on Sept. 21 at home against Utah.
The CU soccer team plays its first seven matches at home, including an Aug. 27 date against a Michigan State team that reached the second round of last year’s NCAA Tournament. The new lights at Prentup will get put to good use, as the Buffs have six scheduled home games at night — the opener against UNC, Colorado College (Aug. 24), North Carolina State (Aug. 31), the Pac-12 opener against perennial power UCLA (Sept. 22), Stanford (Oct. 5) and Arizona (Oct. 26).
The cross country team opens its season on Sept. 23 at the Virginia Invitational, on the same course that will host the NCAA championship meet in November.
