Go WEST young man (and NORTH)

[Kuiper]

Cal Lutheran

Cal Lu had a bad year in 2025, finishing 2-11-5.  They played a lot of teams tight, with some ties and a lot of 2-1 and 1-0 losses, but that's partly because they went more defensive once they realized their offense was struggling.  And they did have a pretty tough non-conference schedule, with a road trip to play Colorado College and Whitman in Colorado Springs, but their 2026 schedule is arguably tougher, with games against Colorado College and Emory, although at home.

The bigger problem is that Cal Lu seems to be worse off roster-wise unless some freshman, transfers, and underclassmen take a big leap this year.  Their top two scorers have graduated, including 1st team All SCIAC MF Kane Reese, who is now playing professionally with SV 1890 Westerhausen in, I think, the 6th tier of German football.  They also lose D Jack Gominiak, who was 2nd team All SCIAC in 2024 and played almost every minute in 2025, MF Danny Rodriguez, who led the team in minutes, and D Caleb Merrill, who was a regular starter as a 5th year senior.  Plus, starting GK Isaak Tanaka graduated.  He's not quite as big a loss - literally, since he was listed at 5'8" - but he had 74 saves for a bad team and kept games close with his aggressive play.

I think their defense can continue to be strong.  6'5" defender Jackson Smart is a good presence and Shaw Nishizawa started every game as a freshman last season and is back.  They have a 6'3" transfer defender from LA Mission College, Pablo Leon, who started all but two games for a top juco program that made it to regionals. He could be one to watch.  They also have some options at GK, including Anthony Sound, who played 4 games last season, but his 4.90 GAA doesn't inspire confidence (although it was artificially raised by getting 90 minutes in the last game of the season against D1 Cal Baptist).  They also have a transfer keeper, 6'5 Jackson Bankers, who came from D2 Dallas Baptist.

I have no idea, however, where they are going to get offense.  It would be nice if Maximo Schelotto could regain his form from freshman year, when he scored 6 goals.  Schelotto, the son of Guillermo Barrios Schelotto (former player at Boca Juniors, Columbus Crew, and coach of the LA Galaxy), was apparently injured most of last season.  They also recruited transfer forward Liam Stoner of Pacific Lutheran, who played all 20 games last season for the Lutes, although he only scored 1 goal in two years with PLU.

[Kuiper]

The SCAC has released its Men's Soccer 2026 Preseason Poll (with first place votes in parentheses)

1. Colorado College (7)
2. Texas Lutheran (3)
3. Concordia
4. St. Thomas
5. Austin
6. LeTourneau
7. Hendrix
8. Centenary
9. Ozarks
10. Dallas

[Kuiper]

Willamette

Willamette showed glimpses of life last season, finishing 7-6-7, but suffering only 1 loss in its last 10 games, including winning 4 of its last 5 games.  Problem was that Freshman forward Ky Iliev, who was one of the reasons for real hope this season after scoring 9 goals and 4 assists and earning All NWC recognition, has departed and is playing community college.  They also lose 5 regular or frequent starters to graduation.  They do return starting GK Mikkel Jensen and several defenders who played a lot of minutes as freshmen and should be more ready right out of the box this season.  In general, however, they remain a pretty young team and this might be another year of growing pains as they try to fight back into the top tier of the NWC.  A road trip to SoCal to play Whittier and Pomona-Pitzer should be a good gauge as teams that would probably be competitive in the NWC, but wouldn't necessarily dominate.

One side note: They list CB Everett Caspell, a sophomore CB, as 6'10".  He started all 20 games last season and I watched enough NWC games that I definitely would have noticed at least on corners if there was a 6'10" guy in the middle of the Willamette scrum.  I think he's either 6'1" and that was a typo or this is the worst case I've seen of a coach exaggerating the height of a player on his team to get the opponents worried.