Columbia County has been selected to host the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) D1 Women’s Soccer National Championship in 2026.
But this isn’t Columbia County’s first time involved with the championship. Brian Marshall, promotions and sales manager with Columbia County, said this will be the third time the county has hosted the Division I Women’s Soccer National Championship.
“We’ve also hosted the DII women back in 2020 when we hosted both of those together,” Marshall said.” This will be our fourth National Championship with the National Junior Colleges coming in. There will be 12 teams from across the country coming to Evans, Georgia competing for their national championship over the period of a week.”
As for why the county wanted to host it again, Marshall said with past tournaments there has been a $1.2 million an economic impact on the community. In the past, the tournament has brought in between 1,500 to 2,000 people to the community.
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“I think first and foremost, it’s a great economic driver for our local businesses, for our hoteliers,” Marshall said. “In addition, it allows individuals to experience Columbia County that may be looking at a future place to live or an area. We’ve heard from a lot of former student athletes that when they came, they enjoyed this area, the coaches enjoyed coming to the area.”
Marshall added that it’s “pretty special” to be picked to host the tournament for third time because not every county gets the opportunity to host once, let alone three times.
“These national championships continue to select us and want to come every so often and there’s not many communities that can even say they’ve hosted one,” Marshall said. “So, for us to continuously compete for these and be winning them is a huge honor and something we don’t take lightly.”
While the tournament is here, Marshall said the players have met with younger soccer players, which could inspire the younger players to continue playing soccer.
The tournament also brings in a lot of NCAA coaches, who are looking to recruit the players, to the area, said Marshall.
“It’s a really cool event, they put on a really good show and a lot of them go on to play at the Division 1 or Division 2 level for the remainer of their collegiate careers,” Marshall said.
The tournament will be held Nov. 15-21, 2026, at Blanchard Woods Park.
