2020 Season

With NLI signing for both women's and men's soccer now beginning in November, it seems right to begin this new thread with UP's announcement that defender Kevin Bonilla has signed a NLI with the Pilots...

https://portlandpilots.com/news/2019/11/13/msoc-adds-us-u-20-national-team-defender-kevin-bonilla.aspx

This signing was not a surprise because we knew Bonilla had verbally committed to UP, but I think we know Coach Nick Carlin-Voigt well enough to know there will be surprises and more signings as players come and go before the 2020 season begins.

UP has added two more "Internationals" to the roster with the addition of grad-transfer defender Paul Odendahl from Germany and transfer forward Jason Reyes from Costa Rica.

https://portlandpilots.com/news/2020/2/12/msoc-pilots-add-odendahl-and-reyes-to-the-roster.aspx

I guess the men played the Portland Timbers 2 last night...anybody on PN see the game or hear about it?

Geez, you're supposed to keep us up-to-date on this stuff.  

I had another event after the Wbb game.

And though I have as much confidence as the next guy that president Trump has installed the best staff to take care of the Corona crisis in Mike Pence and the doc who tells us Donny is the healthiest man on the planet along with a censored CDC head, I’m staying home when I’ve already had long day and It’s raining. When you are in the 8% bracket, you think of such things

Nick Fernandez, a midfielder from Chandler, Arizona and the Barca Residence Academy, FC Barcelona’s Youth Residency Soccer Academy in the United States, has committed to UP.



Not sure, but I think Coach Nick is looking for one more player, probably a transfer or grad-transfer.

DoubleDipper wrote:Not sure, but I think Coach Nick is looking for one more player, probably a transfer or grad-transfer.

Apparently Nick has received the commitment of a very, very good transferring GK and as many as four others, but while we await that announcement (maybe next week?), I'm told walk-on freshman GK, 6-5 Logan Nelson from Wenatchee will be joining the team this summer.

DoubleDipper wrote:Apparently Nick has received the commitment of a very, very good transferring GK and as many as four others...

After much anticipation, Spanish GK Lillo Portero has committed to the Pilots.

A transfer from Stetson, Portero has 3 years of remaining eligibility...

https://portlandpilots.com/news/2020/4/17/msoc-goalkeeper-lillo-portero-commits-to-the-pilots.aspx

As we await the announcement of even more recruit signings this week, here's the (COVID-19 tentative) 2020 schedule:

8/15 Oregon St. (Exhib) 7pm
8/18 TBA (Exhib) 7pm
8/21 UW (Exhib) 7pm
8/28 Creighton 7pm
8/31 UNLV 7pm
9/4 Seattle U. 7pm
9/7 Marist 7pm
9/12 @ UCLA TBA
9/18 TBA 4:30pm (double-header with UP women playing at 7pm)
9/21 @ UC Irvine TBA
9/25 UW 7pm (double-header with women playing at 4:30pm)
9/28 Dixie St. 7pm
10/3 SMC 7pm
10/10 @ UOP 7pm
10/16 @ Maryland TBA
10/24 LMU 5pm
10/28 @ GU TBA
10/31 @ USD TBA
11/7 SCU 5pm
11/14 @ USF TBA

December 11/13 NCAA College Cup in Santa Barbara

The Pilots have added speedy striker Buba Fofanah to the squad.

Originally from Kenema, Sierra Leone, Fofanah comes to The Bluff from Santa Barbara, Calif.



https://portlandpilots.com/news/2020/4/27/buba-fofanah-joins-the-mens-soccer-recruiting-class.aspx

Coach Carlin-Voight announced on Twitter that the men’s team reached a 3.5 GPA.

Like the women, it’s the highest in program history.

Congrats to the team and to Coach.

Goal scoring grad transfer joining the team.
https://portlandpilots.com/news/2020/5/11/msoc-pilots-add-miguel-yuste-to-the-program.aspx

Fan favorite and rising star, Jacobo Reyes, has decided not to return to Portland and will instead explore a professional career.

Coach Carlin-Voigt says the coaching staff and team leadership is staying in-touch with all the players, and is hoping to see them begin returning to campus toward the end of June through mid-July.  

Two local players joining the team that I don't think we've heard about before are: Freshman forward, Jacob Babalai, who starred at Portland Christian High before playing as a senior at West Linn, and Jacob McDaniel, a defender out of Liberty High. McDaniel was the Pacific Conference player of the year in 2019 and a first-team Class 6A all-state selection.

He also said he'd like to bring in at least two more players before the beginning of the season, bringing the total new-guy count to 12.

New but still COVID-19 Tentative:

8/15 OSU (Exhib) 7pm
8/21 UW (Exhib) 7pm
8/31 UNLV 7pm
9/4 Seattle U 7pm
9/12 @ UCLA
9/21 @ UC Irvine
9/25 UW 7pm
9/28 Dixie St. 7pm
10/3 SMC 7pm
10/10 @ UOP
10/24 LMU 5pm
10/28 @ GU
10/31 @ USD
11/7 SCU 5pm
11/14 @ USF

The latest schedule as of 7-17-2020

9/28 Dixie St. 7pm
10/3 SMC 7pm
10/10 @ UOP
10/24 LMU 5pm
10/28 @ GU
10/31 @ USD
11/7 SCU 5pm
11/14 @ USF

Vancouver Whitecaps FC Academy midfielder/striker, and British Columbia native, Brandon Cambridge, has signed with the Pilots.

If there is a season, he could have an immediate impact.

Hooray for the NCAA for doing the right thing! The Division I Council has adopted permanent legislation allowing for “Need-based financial aid that does not count against other school-given merit-based awards with no relationship to athletics ability.”

This is big news for the equivalency sports, especially men’s soccer which has 9.9 scholarships spread between up to 30 players, many of whom come to UP needing other scholarships to stay in school.

Baseball, with a scholarship limit of 11.7 for as many as 35 players could be helped the most by this legislation, while women’s soccer, which is allotted 14 scholarships, will also benefit.  Even men’s tennis, which is allowed 4.5 scholarships, while generally fielding a team of 10, could benefit from this new ruling.

(Men’s basketball (13), women’s basketball (15), women’s tennis (8, and women’s volleyball (12) are head count sports, i.e., the stated scholarship limit is absolute, and the number of  athletes receiving awards cannot exceed this number.)

https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/sports/lsu/article_852a0410-c6ed-11ea-acab-f308e33e5002.html

Women’s gymnastics is also a head count sport (12) But  only in D1.
And the biggie is FBS football, which is also head count (85)

Since most FBS schools roster 110 or more football  players, expect most needs money to magically find its way there.
It also doesn’t address the inequalities caused by state schools being able to grant in-state tuition to out of state athletes in some states.

It’s not all new pilot players coming in.

I see Pitt announced the signing of grad transfer Nico Campuzano  from UP

https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://pittsburghpanthers.com/news/2020/8/7/mens-soccer-vidovich-adds-12-to-fall-roster.aspx&ct=ga&cd=CAEYACoUMTUyNjQyNTIwNjA3NjQ5ODY3MTUyGjZkZThhMTNmYTI2MjU5NWM6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AFQjCNHExeceHqrNgkyCgxu92Sqp3GBhdQ

must be the gk log jam.

Coach Nick Carlin-Voigt gives us a rundown on past and present Pilots and how the team is moving forward during the pandemic.

For those of you wondering why last year’s freshman midfielder  Noah Beck isn’t on the roster, here ya go.

https://www.seventeen.com/celebrity/celebrity-couples/a34074162/who-is-noah-beck-dixie-damelio-rumored-boyfriend-tiktok/

Other than the dating thing, I have no idea what most of that means, but with 14 million TikTok followers and 1.3 million liking a single Instagram post, it was apparently a career move.

I suggest that if that’s the case, he shouldn’t break up with Dixie ( or James) until he has a fall-back career.

And he better hope Trump doesn’t close down TikTok and Barr doesn’t prosecute him as a Chinese agent or something.

Benji Michel has been starting and red hot the last few games for Orlando. Pilot fans might want to check them out the next time they play. Still fun seeing the backflip celebration.

https://www.facebook.com/OrlandoCitySC/videos/goal-benji-michel/799899747428333/

The West Coast Conference has announced that for men’s soccer, it will conduct a seven-week soccer schedule from February 28 through April 11. Matches will be held on Sundays in six of the seven weeks, while each team will square off on Saturday during the week of Easter.

The announcement does not say anything about non-conference games, but I suspect that teams are allowed to and will play them, as an alternative they considered to the adopted conference schedule was a double round robin.

I guess we should now call it the 2020/21 season, but this afternoon the newest version of the Pilots kick off against George Fox at 5pm.

By my count there are 16 new players joining the 19 who have returned from last year, so it might be important to print out the roster from the UP website.   https://portlandpilots.com/sports/mens-soccer/roster

Watch it here:  https://wccsports.com/watch/?sid=456609

Final 9-0. It wasn’t that close, but at least we got to see the new players, who were without exception pretty impressive.
The pilots played 23 players, including 3 keepers. None of whom saw a shot fired in anger.

The Pilots took 23 shots of which a pretty impressive 17 were on frame. 15 corners. George Fox didn’t make it on the tally sheet.

Two player surprises. Jake Arteaga played central defender. I can’t say he played great defence because he didn’t have to, but his passing was crisp.

And Delentz Pierre, voted to the preseason conference team, didn’t play. I hope he’s not hurt.

Two other comments. The benches are on the far side of the field this year, presumably so they can use the bleachers for social distancing. And the lighting seemed dim on the field.maybe they need to crank the camera gain up to 11.

Geezaldinho wrote:. And the lighting seemed dim on the field.  Maybe they need to crank the camera gain up to 11.

Oh good, you noticed it too, I thought my eyes were just going bad.  

The kid I was looking forward to watching the most was freshman Brandon Cambridge out of Surrey, BC, and he didn't disappoint...came off the bench and scored 2 goals and added an assist.

Another freshman I was curious about was Buba Fofanah from Sierra Leone because he was track star in high school.  He had an assist on nicely struck ball through the area to Cambridge, and then scored with about 15 minutes to go on a nice first touch in the box.

Good to see Nick getting so many players into the action tonight as we know it's going to be a hard fought physical affair in Corvallis on Sunday.

None of the four preseason games, George Fox, OSU, UW, and Gonzaga (UP and GU also meet next month in Spokane in a WCC game) are considered exhibition games, so the Pilots are officially 1-0 on the season.