1:30 p.m. Thursday – SOU at Pacific | Live Stream | Live Stats
10:30 a.m. Saturday – Benedictine Mesa at SOU | Live Stream | Live Stats | Tickets

ASHLAND – A winning percentage of .817 in Cascade Conference play under Davie Carmichael means the standard stays high for the Southern Oregon men's soccer team, even in a season like 2024 when it had to fill the shoes of six graduated all-stars.

A late-season lull, and a rare early postseason exit, did not sit well with the Raiders. But the motivation it left them with and the reinforcements on hand for this fall give reason to believe 2025 will be different.

Four All-CCC honorees are back to lead the Raiders' goal-prevention efforts, including the last two CCC Defensive Players of the Year: senior goalkeeper Casey Ruvolo and senior defender Tristan Skerritt. Among their 15 newcomers are a handful that will provide some added creativity to a more seasoned attack which endured fits of inconsistency last year, producing fewer conference goals than in any of the five previous full seasons under Carmichael.

"We knew we needed to be more clinical in the boxes on both sides of the field, and we needed more goals by committee rather than letting opponents focus on one or two individuals," said Carmichael, entering his eighth year at SOU with a 92-26-9 overall record. "I think the team we have now is a little more unpredictable, a little more dynamic in the final third, and from a personality standpoint they're a lot more united in working for each other."

PRESEASON POLLS
The top of the CCC is expected to be as deep as ever according to a preseason coaches' poll in which five different teams received a first-place votes. SOU was one of them, landing picked second just ahead of defending CCC Tournament champion Eastern Oregon. Defending regular-season champion Carroll (Mont.) was tabbed the favorite, collecting nine of 13 first-place votes after going 11-1-1 in the conference last year. The Saints were also the circuit's only team to receive votes in Wednesday's NAIA Top 25 preseason poll at No. 31 overall.

FIRST UP
SOU's Raider Stadium debut, at 10:30 a.m. Saturday against Benedictine Mesa (Ariz.), was originally marked as the team's season opener. That is no longer the case after Thursday's 1:30 p.m. affair at Pacific was changed this week from an exhibition to a counter. Pacific, an NCAA Division III member of the Northwest Conference, went 9-8-3 last season and will be meeting SOU in the regular season for the first time, though the Boxers will count it as an exhibition on their end. Saturday's Benedictine Mesa game is still on, and the Redhawks will first visit Oregon Tech on Thursday to kick off their follow-up to a 6-8-4 campaign out of the Great Southwest Athletic Conference.

LAST SEASON
The Raiders went 12-5-2 overall with a 9-2-2 CCC record in 2024, finishing second on the circuit table. They were 7-0-1 in conference play with first place to themselves before going 2-2-1 down the stretch, then fell 2-1 in overtime to Oregon Tech in the first round of the CCC Tournament – stopping short of the semifinal round for the first time since 2016. Despite the disappointing finish, the Raiders were a top-three seed in the conference for the fifth time in Carmichael's six full seasons, and they did it with a roster that had to replace the top-three points scorers in team history.

POSITION BY POSITION
GOALKEEPERS: Casey Ruvolo followed up his 2023 CCC Defensive Player of the Year campaign with another first-team All-CCC season, ranking second among conference keepers in both goals-allowed average (0.85) and save percentage (.746). The fourth-year starter enters his senior year with a career 32-11-2 keeper record and 22 shutouts. He'll be backed up again by senior Aly Alvarado, a third-year Raider. Carmichael brought in two freshman keepers in Daniel Espinosa from Puebla, Mexico, and Nathan Stamper from Portland's Sunset High.

DEFENDERS: The back line remains a strong suit of SOU's, especially with the return of 2024 CCC co-Defensive Player of the Year Tristan Skerritt. He'll be a staple again along with All-CCC first-team selection Daniel Palomino – a junior defensive-midfielder who already has 38 starts under his belt – and All-CCC honorable mention recipient Josué Ghiessy Biveghe, another senior. Together, they helped limit each of SOU's conference opponents to five or fewer shots on goal last year. They'll be complemented by the additions of highly-touted Chilean freshman Agustin Gannat, former McMinnville High standout Nick Lozano, and Indian Hills C.C. (Calif.) transfer Maxwell Tennant, a junior Australian.

MIDFIELDERS: Along with Palomino, the Raiders have returners at midfield in Kaden Barker, who is back after missing most of the last two seasons due to injury; Harry Cullen, a senior from England who made 10 starts in his first year at SOU; and second-year Raiders Isaac Ramirez and Felix Valenzuela Paz, both of whose roles could expand. Carmichael is also high on a couple of newcomers: Jonathan Gaspar joins the team via the now-defunct Multnomah University after compiling three goals and an assist over 18 games last year, while freshman Leon Junker will add some punch from Germany.

FORWARDS: Experience should benefit a few Raider returners up front, including junior Mustafa Daggig, who scored all of his team-high eight goals over the first eight games of the season in 2024. Sophomore Ariel Deo Dios Cruz will be more prominently featured after recording three goals and an assist in his debut season, having earned a starting job down the stretch. The Raiders – who ranked sixth in CCC goals scored last season with 25 – got more dynamic, however, with the arrivals of graduate student Irwin Leon and junior Papa Yansane. Leon was a two-time selection to the All-CCC second team at Corban, where he accumulated 14 goals and seven assists across the 2023 and '24 seasons. Yansane was the Northwest Athletic Conference's Southern Region Offensive Player of the Year at Lane C.C., tallying nine goals and three assists in 11 games. Luis Siebenhaar, a promising freshman from Germany, is also new to the group.