PORTLAND, Ore. – The Portland men's tennis team has signed four-star recruit Issa Yoshida (Campbell, Calif./Westmont HS) to a National Letter of Intent and he will join the Pilots as a freshman in the fall of 2018, head coach Aaron Gross announced on Thursday. Yoshida joins Nicklas Oberg as the first two members of Portland's 2018 class.

Yoshida has been ranked as high as No. 1 in the Norcal 18s age bracket and was No. 3 in the region for 16s. TennisRecruiting.net lists him as a four-star recruit and just outside the top 100 players for the class of 2018.

A four-time California State Junior Team Champion, he was the 2014 Northern California Junior Team Tennis Player of the Year. Yoshida has won two high school league singles titles and the 2017 Central Coast Section High School Boys doubles championship.

"Issa has definitely been under the radar lately," Gross said. "I got to see him play at the end of the summer and my eyes were drawn to his potential and clean ball striking. The timing is perfect for Issa to come in and battle to have an immediate impact. Ninety percent of his opportunity to have that impact will be determined by how he approaches these next six-to-nine months. I'm hopeful that Issa will take advantage of the openings created by our large graduating class and really go after it at a time when a lot of early signees sit back and relax. He definitely has the talent to be a handful at the college level right away."

Portland won its first West Coast Conference regular season championship last year, finished the season with an 18-3 overall record and was ranked No. 48 in the final ITA National Rankings. The Pilots just missed the NCAA Championships, but return nearly the entire roster. Pervolarakis, ranked No. 95 in the fall, headlines a roster that features seven seniors this season.

Gross, the 2014 and 2017 WCC Coach of the Year, is expecting more 2018 recruits to sign during the November early signing period.