PORTLAND, Ore.---The Portland Pilots beach volleyball team will open the 2021 season in Salem against the Corban Warriors on Sunday, with matches set to begin at 2 p.m.
 
Live stats and live video will not be available for any of the games.
 
The Pilots will be led this year by head coach Dylan Hamilton, in his third season at the helm of the growing program.
 
Shayla Hoeft returns for Portland to compete in her final season as a Pilot, as well as 2018 Big-Sky Libero of the year Alycia Wodke, a transfer out of Idaho who joined the Pilots beach team back in January 2020.
 
Portland also welcomes four newcomers to the program this year in Maluhia Hirahara, Sophie Lee, Kendall Nolan, and Krysten Bugarin.
 
With the majority of the 2020 season cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pilots are coming off a 2019 season that featured new heights for the program, including recording their first season with multiple WCC wins as a program, defeating the Pacific Tigers twice at the Santa Cruz WCC Mid-Season Invitational.
 
Portland's lone competition last season was against Oregon, in which the Ducks prevailed 3-2 over the Pilots.
 
In the 2021 Beach Volleyball Preseason Poll, Loyola Marymount received the maximum number of possible first-place votes to claim the top spot for the second year in a row. Portland was selected to finish seventh.
 
Sunday's matches against the Warriors marks the first of six meetings between the two teams in Salem this year, with the next coming up on Saturday, Mar. 13th. Start times for those games are still TBA.