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Men's Soccer In the Hunt for NWC Title

By Mark Albanese, Director of Sports Communication

Expectations remain sky high for a Pacific Lutheran University men’s soccer program that has dominated the Northwest Conference over the past decade, winning seven titles over the past nine seasons and making six trips to the NCAA Division III Tournament during that stretch.

As usual, we always have the high expectation to compete for a Northwest Conference Championship. We again think we have the right team to do that and think at this point in the pre-season we’re ahead of where we were last year at this point.

I think the difference is last year we were transitioning a lot of guys from role players into leaders and starters, and this year we have a pretty good core of returning veteran players and it’s really more about incorporating our new guys.

Head Coach John Yorke

This year’s team returns with a bitter taste in its mouth, finishing runner-up in 2025 after falling 3-1 at home to Whitman College in the regular season finale, giving the Blues the NWC crown and the league’s automatic bid to the national tournament.

PLU wrapped the season with a 13-4-3 overall record and a 12-1-3 mark in conference play. Under the direction of Head Coach John Yorke, the Lutes have finished in the top two of the league in each of the last nine seasons. Now in his 25th year at the helm of his alma mater, Yorke sits just 12 wins shy of 300 for his career, boasting an overall winning percentage of 64.7 percent and an even better 69.2 percent winning percentage in conference play since taking over prior to the 2002 campaign.

There’s a lot of good teams in our league and the league’s become more competitive over the last two or three years but we’re very talented. Talented and experienced. There’s a big differ-ence between being a first year starter or a first year leader versus being a junior or a senior that’s established in a leadership role within the team and has earned the right to lead. We have a lot of continuity in the starting lineup, returning players with a lot of good experience.

Gio Aguilar-Gutierrez at first practice of the fall

Knowhere are the Lutes more experienced than at goalkeeper where the Lutes return all four goalies that saw action last fall, including Second Team All-Conference selection Gio Aguilar-Gutierrez.

Aguilar-Gutierrez led the team in minutes played, appearing in 12 of the team’s 20 games and logging 900 minutes between the posts. The junior from Spanaway, Washington led the team in saves with 48 while boasting a 1.30 goals against average.

Also returning is senior Chris Jamrok. A transfer last year from University of California-Santa Cruz, the former Banana Slug played in six games for the Lutes, earning NWC Defensive Player of the Week on Sept. 8.

Landon Gordon enters his junior year after seeing eight games of action last fall. The Lacey, Washington native made 30 saves and was the NWC Defensive Player of the Week on Oct. 27 after making his first ever start the previous day.

Keegan Roddis is the fourth returning keeper for the Lutes. A Toronto, Canada native, the sophomore made one appearance in net during the 2025 season.

We have a really crowded goalkeeper room which I mean in a good way. We have four guys that could all play and all four of them could be top level players in this conference. So we’re very fortunate to have that. It’s going to be interesting to see how it all shakes out with the goalkeeping room and who becomes the starter and who’s ready to compete for that but I have faith in all four of them and any of them we’d be confident in.

We will probably give them all opportunities to seize the job. In the SPU exhibition game we played all three that we’re healthy, giving them different looks. It’s really just an open competi-tion at this point, we can win with all of them, so we’ll use the first four games to determine a little bit more of a depth chart.

In front of the keepers is a strong defensive unit, including central defenders Landen Sexton and Gracen Connell. A First Team All-Conference selection last fall, Sexton started in 19 of the team’s 20 games last fall. The senior from Olympia, Washington scored three goals for the Lutes and was a big leader on a defensive line that posted three shutouts on the season.

Connell returns for his senior campaign after starting all 20 games last year. The Bellingham, Washington native was an ironman for the Lutes playing in 1,772 of a possible 1,800 minutes in 2025.

Landen Sexton in game against Willamette

We expect big years from Gracen and Landen. Landen being a 3 ½ to four year starter and Gracen now being in his third year of starting.

Alvin Kamau returns for his senior campaign. The Nairobi, Kenya native started 18 games last year and was a First Team All-Conference selection. A versatile player, Kamau scored a goal and had two assists last year.

Preston Soeum played in 18 games and made 10 starts last fall and the Tacoma native looks to make an even bigger impact this fall along with returning senior defenders Owen Harned and Ryan Vu, and sophomore defender Eli Hamlin.

We’re very strong in central defending with returning guys of Landen and Gracen. Alvin is a four-year starter at left back. Preston is really versatile. He can play right back, center back, he got some good minutes for us last year, so all four of them are returning and on top of that Ryan, Owen, Eli, and a multitude of guys who can play back there for us. I feel we were maybe a little short in depth there last year and I think we have a little more this year.

Leading the midfield will be returning All-Conference players Connor O’Brien and Misha Turchaninov. A senior from Renton, Washington, O’Brien led the team in assists with 11 on the year while sitting second on the squad in points (23), and third in goals (six). The First Team All-Conference selection played all 20 games last fall while fellow midfielder Turchaninov was a Third Team All-NWC pick. A senior from Anchorage, Alaska, Turchaninov played all 20 games, scoring six goals while netting one assist. That includes going a perfect three-for-three on penalty kicks.

At the end of last year our midfield was exhausted. We did not have enough depth there due to injury. So one of our key focuses on our offseason was to get some depth there. We return a strong starting group. We lost Alex Coope which is a hug loss, but we do have Caden Davis, who is healthy this year for the first time since he’s been here. Misha and Connor look like four year senior stud guys. Eric Martinez was a first year with us last year as a junior transfer has been great in the preseason and we’ve got a lot of good freshmen depth as well as some re-turning veterans.

A junior from Portland, Oregon, Caden Davis played in 16 games last year with one goal and two helpers while Eric Martinez made 12 appearances and scored one goal.

“I really like what I see out of Caden. He’s always been a really good player. That’s not been his issue. His issue has been health wise and he’s healthy so he looks ready to have a really big impact.”

Spearheading the offensive attack at forward is Spanaway, Washington senior Owen Bliskis. A First Team All-League selection, Bliskis led the team in scoring with 14 goals, including three game-winning goals. With 27 career goals to his name, the senior striker sits just three goals shy of cracking the program’s all-time top 10 scoring chart.

Joining Bliskis on the attack is Ty Brunner who notched nine goals and three assists last fall, including tying a team-high with a trio of game-winning scores.

“The forward position was a little thin last year in terms of depth, due to inexperience and injury. But having all those guys return and having some guys get older and bringing in some new guys, has really helped the depth.”

Nairobi, Kenya native Mike Murega returns after posting three goals and one assist in 14 games, with two of his three goals being game winners.

I expect Owen to have a huge year. I think Ty has the ability to lead the league in goals or assists, depending on how he focuses. Mike has really broken out this year. He’s one of the biggest breakout guys for us as a junior this year.

In addition to a strong core of returners, the Lutes welcome 10 new players to the squad for 2026.

“Right now we have 10 new players and all 10 of them provide a very good quality to our team. Some of those guys are going to play right away and some of them may be more developmental this year. All those guys will bring a real quality into their freshman year and I would not be surprised if some of them start.”

Two first-years that have impressed early are a pair from Colorado in Troy Brown and Drew Tullio. A forward, Brown hails from Broomfield, Colorado and Jefferson Academy while Tullio, a defender, hails from Centennial, Colorado and Eaglecrest High School.

Other first years making a name early in the preseason have been Isak Medhaug from Shoreline, Washington, Valentijn Belder from Rotterdam, Netherlands, and Ian Hruschka from Stanwood, Washington. Bonney Lake, Washington native Gavin Murphy has a nose for the goal as a forward with a lot of goal scoring ability while Liam Hastings from Seattle and Ballard High School has impressed.

We’ve been real impressed with both of our Colorado kids — Troy and Drew. Isak and Valentijn have been very good for us to start. Ian has made a good impact early on in camp. I think Gavin is going to score a ton of goals in this league. Liam is another one. Very good defender.

A lot of these guys could start right away but if not, it makes the future very strong.

The Lutes open up 2026 with a tough non-conference slate, welcoming Chapman University and Midwest Conference Champion Lake Forest College to East Field for the opening weekend of the season before facing College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW) powers Wheaton College and North Park University in week two in the Chicago suburb of Wheaton.

The philosophy here is play as many tough competitors as you can. We’re going to have Lake Forest come to us who lost just one game in the regular season and was a top 10 type of program last year. Chapman is always a very good program. And then we head to Wheaton, who is preseason No. 7 and North Park who last time we played them was a difficult competition for us in the national tournament.

I really like our preseason in terms of its strength and its ability to prepare us for the NWC sea-son. Again, we try and bite off a pretty competitive preseason and I think we’ve done that again.

2026 PLU Men's Soccer Schedule