CORVALLIS, Ore. – The Cascade Collegiate Conference (CCC) office announced the 2026 Softball Coaches' Preseason Poll earlier today, where the Corban University Softball team was slated to finish the upcoming spring season in ninth among the NAIA's most difficult conference to play in given its historic run of national championship titles continuously being made up of nationally ranked squads on an annual basis.
To view the conference's release on the 2026 Softball Coaches' Preseason Poll, click HERE.
"We are extremely excited to get the 2026 season started," shared Warriors' second-year head coach Jeff Covalt. "Playing in the best conference across the nation is certainly a challenge in itself, but the new additions and big off season progressions we've established makes me fully confident that we will be much improved and are ready to battle our way through a great conference schedule this upcoming season."
The reigning NAIA national champion Raiders of Southern Oregon University (80) received eight of the nine first place votes available to sit alone atop the 2026 preseason poll results, with Oregon Tech (71) earning the lone remaining first place vote after sharing the CCC regular season title with SOU in 2025. Eastern Oregon University's (68) historic postseason run that concluded in the national semifinals earned them a third place nod in today's preseason rankings.
A dead even tie between the University of British Columbia (54) and The College of Idaho (54) makes up the fourth place position in the 2026 CCC preseason poll, with Simpson University (42) representing the final postseason worthy team in sixth overall entering their first season competing within the Pacific Northwest based conference.
Bushnell University (37) and Warner Pacific University (36) are separated by a lone voter point in seventh and eighth, respectively, while the Warriors (22) will attempt to prove their preseason prediction incorrect in 2026 when they enter the second year of Coach Covalt's tenure. Corban softball most recently qualified for a postseason appearance in 2022 when they served as the sixth-overall seed in the CCC Tournament.
The 2026 spring schedule is set to begin in mid-February for the Navy and Gold, as they'll enter the year on the road for an eight-game road trip, starting on February 14th at NCAA DIII Linfield University.
2026 CCC Softball Coaches' Preseason Poll Results
|
Team [First Place Votes]
|
Points
|
|
1.
|
Southern Oregon [4]
|
80
|
|
2.
|
Oregon Tech [1]
|
71
|
|
3.
|
Eastern Oregon
|
68
|
|
T4.
|
British Columbia
|
54
|
|
T4.
|
College of Idaho
|
54
|
|
6.
|
Simpson (Calif.)
|
42
|
|
7.
|
Bushnell (Ore.)
|
37
|
|
8.
|
Warner Pacific (Ore.)
|
36
|
|
9.
|
Corban (Ore.)
|
24
|
The NAIA Softball Coaches' Preseason Poll will be released on Wednesday, November 5th.
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