PORTLAND, Ore. – When asked what he thought about the Portland Pilots being picked to finish first in the West Coast Conference by his peers in the annual WCC Preseason Coaches Poll, Portland head coach Nick Carlin-Voigt said he thought about it for maybe two seconds. He was appreciative of the show of faith in his squad, but winning a preseason poll doesn't get you any hardware. There's no trophy for winning the preseason in college soccer.

"I don't give it any stock," Carlin-Voigt said. "Every year I bet on ourselves to try to win the league. Our goal every year is to push for championships… it's a sign of respect that other teams think that we have an okay group, but at the end of the day Santa Clara is the defending champs."

With six years as a WCC gaffer in his back pocket, Carlin-Voigt has learned that it rarely matters where you're picked to finish in this league. For example, the Pilots won the WCC regular season title back in 2016, Carlin-Voigt's first year as head coach. They were picked to finish sixth that season. It's not a matter of how you start; it's how you finish.

Despite Carlin-Voigt's ambivalence, the ranking shows that Portland's sustained success hasn't gone unnoticed. The Pilots made the playoffs last year for the third time in six seasons (only five fall seasons), advanced to the second round after their third home playoff win since 2002 and finished the year ranked in TopDrawerSoccer's final top 25 poll. It's been a solid six years, but in Year Seven, Carlin-Voigt and the Pilots are ready to take it to the next level.

Last year, the Pilots were one of the top teams in the conference, finishing in a three-way tie for third. They came within a game of winning the conference title, with last year's late loss to last year's champs, the Santa Clara Broncos, preventing them from finishing first. Still, they were one of only two teams in the conference to make the NCAA Tournament (Santa Clara was the other), taking down Seattle U at Merlo Field to advance to the second round against No. 3 Washington.

Statistically, the Pilots were one of the top teams in the WCC. They were second in goals (29) and goal differential (nine), third in total points (77) and shutout percentage (.368) and fourth in both assists (25) and goals against average (1.03). But Carlin-Voigt was more impressed with the team's mental resolve during hard times – they endured three straight losses to CSUN, No. 3 Washington and Saint Mary's in late September – than any numbers they put up.

"The group found another gear, dug in and got better," Carlin-Voigt said. "I was proud our unity and the way we fought."

What propelled Portland to the playoffs was their ability to get big wins when they needed them most. The Pilots had four wins last season against teams that finished the regular season in the top 40 in RPI: UCLA, Seattle U, Loyola Marymount and Northern Illinois.

Each game had its own significance. UCLA was Carlin-Voigt's last job, and the win was Portland's first in program history against the Pac-12 school both on the road and in the regular season. The Seattle U victory gave Portland the lauded Caffe D'Arte Coffee Cup Trophy and set the stage for the eventual playoff showdown that Portland would also win. LMU was a top-15 team that the Pilots beat in overtime off a Gurman Sangha game-winner. Northern Illinois won the MAC regular season title – the MAC had five teams make the tournament – and was ranked 15^th at the time of the game. The Pilots won 4-0.
 
"When you've got the selection committee and they're comparing two teams – Portland and UCLA, LMU and Portland, etc. – and when they look at the second team in the WCC, it was probably us because we beat them (LMU) head-to-head," Carlin-Voigt said. "It was a really, really good body of work last year."

Those wins don't happen without quality players stepping up in big moments. Take Kevin Bonilla, for example. In his first fall season, Bonilla came up huge against UCLA, scoring the game-winning goal and playing the full 90 minutes en route to a 1-0 victory. He finished the year as an All-West Region Third Team selection, a College Soccer News Freshmen All-American and a first team selection for the TopDrawerSoccer Freshmen Best XI.

Bonilla is just one player that Carlin-Voigt said was critical to the team's success last season and their success moving forward. Another player who showed how valuable he can be? This year's captain, George Tasouris. Tasouris was one of the best 'keepers in the conference last year, ranking first in saves (70) and minutes played (1,710) and second shutouts (6) and save percentage (.778).

The 26-year-old graduate transfer from Grand Canyon via Cyprus played a crucial role for the Pilots. He was an All-WCC Second Team selection and an All-West Region Third Team selection. Prior to the season he was on the watch list for the Hermann Trophy, given to the best player in college soccer each season. Tasouris was the embodiment of a modern goalkeeper last season – a stout defensive presence who can put the ball at his feet and distribute effectively to his teammates. However, his best quality is the leadership he provides.

"George is a competitor," Carlin-Voigt said. "You can look at him and you can tell right away that he's professional, he's serious, he works at his craft to get better… and he has a lot that he still wants to accomplish."

Tasouris brings a certain level of intensity to this Pilot squad. The yin to that yang is Pilot midfielder Jake Arteaga, the Pilots' lone All-WCC First Team selection and another All-West Region Third Team member. Arteaga keeps the Pilots in check both on and off the field, serving as the connector for Portland.
 
"I thought it was his best year in a Pilot uniform," Carlin-Voigt said. "He's a calming influence. He balances out George in different ways… and he's been through it, right? The whole experience as a freshman at UP to graduating and now working on his MBA. He's seen each year and each year has been different."

Arteaga is one of two players – the other being Greg Tracey – that played four years at Portland and who are taking advantage of the "COVID year" to play for a fifth season. Carlin-Voigt said that having players like Arteaga and Tracey is highly important because they get what Pilot soccer is about and have seen that evolution.

The grad transfer market, however, also continues to be a valuable resource for finding talent. This year was no exception, with the grad transfer additions being CJ Tibbling and Marios Andreou. Tibbling is a big, physical forward that comes to Portland as a former Hermann Trophy Watch List candidate, All-American and three-time All-Big East selection. Andreou, another Cyprian coming to Portland via Grand Canyon, was a captain for a solid Antelopes squad that won the WAC in the spring of 2021 and twice earned All-WAC honors.

This year's roster is unique compared to prior teams led by Carlin-Voigt. The freshman class is small, with only five coming in. However, the Pilots have several players available who haven't been able to play since either the spring or fall of 2021 that bolster the squad.

Two names Carlin-Voigt highlighted were midfielder Nick Fernandez and defender Nick Denley. Fernandez was one of top freshmen in the conference during the spring of 2021, making the All-WCC Second Team and the freshman team. An injury forced him to redshirt his second year, but thanks to the extra year afforded by COVID, Fernandez starts this year as a redshirt freshman.

Denley, meanwhile, enters this year after not getting the chance to play at all for the Pilots the past two seasons. There's no shortage of chaos when Denley is on the pitch. The defender fully embraces pushing the tempo and has no problem working his way up and down the field, helping both offensively and defensively.
 
"Both of those guys will give us a spark in different ways," Carlin-Voigt said. "They're both guys who let their actions do the talking and they just put on a really solid and honest performance every day."

That doesn't mean that the newcomers won't play a role. The Pilot freshmen – Muslim Umar, Oliver Jeppe, Tommy Musto, Isaac Homer and Miguel-Angel Hernandez – are a solid class that ranked 19^th in TopDrawerSoccer's final recruiting class rankings.

"Some of the four-year guys, I think, are exciting," Carlin-Voigt said. "They're figuring out what it means to be a Pilot and the day-to-day responsibilities that are required here to be at their best, and we hope they're going to be really, really good long-term players."

Every Pilot has a role to play in the system. Portland plays a style that is very up-tempo, with high presses and constant movement on the wings in hopes of creating one-on-one opportunities. It's a style of soccer that isn't easy for everyone to play, but can be highly effective when done right. Not to mention that when it goes right, it's highly entertaining.

"I'm a firm believer that we're in the entertainment business," Carlin-Voigt said. "And for our fans we need to play a type of football that leads to winning but also a type of football that is exciting, that is on the front foot, that is proactive rather than reactive, and is one that is played with tempo."

It's a style that emulates different football clubs that Carlin-Voigt admires. He brings up several Premier League clubs – Arsenal is his personal favorite – that all utilize this style of fast-paced football. The one thing the successful clubs – the Manchester City's and Liverpool's of the world – have in common is a certain amount of flexibility. The importance of malleability is something Carlin-Voigt tries to imbue in his team.

"Our identity doesn't change, but tactically we're flexible," Carlin-Voigt said. "We can easily move from a 4-3-3 to a 4-4-2 or 3-5-2, and that's just the way the modern game is going in different phases of play."
 
The Pilots will put that style of play on display tonight, when they open the season against the Central Arkansas Bears, who won a share of the regular season title in the ASUN. They're just one of several challenging teams in a loaded non-conference slate that features four teams ranked in the Top 25 of both the United Soccer Coaches poll and TopDrawerSoccer's poll.

"This is by far the hardest non-conference schedule we've ever scheduled," Carlin-Voigt said. "Each game will have unique challenges… just a lot of blue blood programs, from UCLA to Indiana, West Virginia was in the Elite Eight last year… but our main focus right now is Central Arkansas."

Following the non-conference games will be a seven-game West Coast Conference schedule that's set to be as challenging as ever. Santa Clara is currently the only ranked team at 21^st in the United Soccer Coaches Poll, but with stalwart squads such as Pacific, Loyola Marymount and Saint Mary's still in the mix, it'll be anything but a cakewalk to break through.

"When you think of this league, there's a lot of parity," Carlin-Voigt said. "It's a quick sprint because there's only seven games and no conference tournament… we have to every day come to work hungry and humble to reach our ultimate goals, which is… winning a championship."

It all comes back to that, doesn't it? All any team wants is the chance to call themselves the champs. The Pilots came dangerously close last season. They're the favorites to do it this season. But the focus is never really on winning for Carlin-Voigt and the Pilots. It's a goal on their goal boards in the locker room, but it's never really talked about. It's almost an implicit thing, because of course everybody wants to win. Instead, it's more about transforming into a truly evolving into an elite squad and navigating everything that comes with that.

"Ultimately our goal is to become a cohesive team that's a family," Carlin-Voigt said. "They're connected through a singleness of purpose, and they all want the same thing, and that's to be our absolute best."

Being at your best is usually all a team can ask for. If everything breaks right for Portland, their best might result in titles.