FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – December 1st, 2025

Portland, Ore.| The Warner Pacific Knights Men's Soccer team has officially made it to the quarterfinals of the NAIA National Tournament. This team made up of local soccer talent from a University with 430 traditional undergraduate students has been sending their opponents packing.

Regular Season
The Knights had a solid season but many would admit they saved their best for last, finishing with a conference record of 7-3-2, and losing a few matches that were unexpected. The team had a lot of talent but wasn't quite hitting on all cylinders limping into the Cascade Collegiate Conference Tournament only winning one of their last four games with two ties and a loss mixed in, but were able to secure third place in the conference and the fourth seed in the conference tournament.

CCC Tournament
Once they began tournament play, the Knights caught fire. The team was already a very good defensive squad, but they ramped it up in a big way and became dominant. Over the final four games of the season including the final game of the regular season and the three CCC Tournament games, the Knights gave up just two goals. On November 12th, the team played in the CCC Tournament Championship Game against a great Carroll College team who had beaten them earlier in the season in Helena, Montana 2-0. This time though the tables were turned and the Knights took the victory in overtime off a header from Damian Palominos to send the Knights onto the NAIA National Tournament.

David vs Goliath #1
Back on November 20th, the Knights traveled to West Palm Beach, Florida matched up against 19th ranked Dalton State College, located in Dalton, Georgia with a total enrollment of 5,570. Their team is made up of 15 international players and 11 American players with eight local kids. The Knights came into the match sitting outside the top 25, and not receiving any votes for ranking. The Knights continued to dominate defensively, shutting Dalton State down, winning 2-0 with goals from Chris Marcial-Cruz and Bodo Calderon (penalty kick).

David vs Goliath #2
The next match for the Knights was an even tougher draw, against the host school,  Keiser University who had received a bye due to being 16-0-2 and ranked third in the country. Keiser as of fall of 2024 has an enrollment of 18,452. Their soccer team has 29 international players and only three players from the states. Only one of their players is a local kid from West Palm Beach.

Keiser University truly dominated the game, outshooting the Knights 27-7 including 10-2 in shots on goal, but the Knights wouldn't quit and came away with a 2-1 victory in regulation over the high powered Seahawks. Bryan Carmona put one in and Bodo Calderon made another penalty kick. When Carmona scored the first goal of the game in the 51st minute, it marked just the ninth goal that Keiser had given up all season. When Calderon scored, it marked the first time all season that Keiser had given up more than one goal in a contest. With the win, the unranked Knights went marching on to the final site in Orange Beach, Alabama as one of the final 16 teams in the country to determine a National Champion.

Round of Sixteen Field
The Round of Sixteen field is an interesting study. Every team in the Round of Sixteen is ranked in the national coaches' poll with the exception of John Brown (Ark.) who is receiving 18 votes to be in the top 25, and Warner Pacific. The Knights are the only team in the final 16 who hasn't been ranked or received a single vote all season long.

David and Goliath #3
The Round of Sixteen game, made Warner Pacific history as the first time that the Knights have competed in a Final Site game. The team standing in their way was LSU Shreveport who was another great team with a lot of pedigree, coming in ranked seventh in the latest coaches' poll. LSU Shreveport is located in Shreveport, Louisiana and as of fall of 2025 reached a record high of 11,359 students which surpassed the 10,000 mark for the first time in the University's 58 year history (1967). The soccer program has 28 players on the squad and every single one of them are international student athletes.

Warner Pacific University's Athletic Director, Matt Gregg who is currently down with the team in Orange Beach has noticed first hand these key differences between our team and all the others. "As I walked around the Final Site banquet, I noticed a majority of the players are big, strong, international student athletes. When we lined up on the pitch, our size difference was obvious. However, this group has shown time and time again that they will not back down. Their defense has been incredible all year long…"

As for the contest against LSUS, the Pilots were using their size to their advantage bullying the Knights around and the refs were allowing it to happen, which played right into the Pilots hands. With the Warner Pac's backs against the wall, the Knights prevailed once again coming back from a 1-0 deficit with just over seven minutes left. Once again, Bodo Calderon was the man with ice water in his veins, curling a free kick around the wall of defenders and sneaking it into the left side of the goal. The game then went through both overtime periods playing an extra 20 minutes before finally deciding the game on dreaded penalty kicks. The Knights got down again,  going down 2-1,  but once again, the Knights fought back and ended up winning the shootout 4-3 behind great goalkeeping from Owen Purvis.

The Trend
The trend should be pretty apparent by now. The schools that the Knights are playing and beating are in different worlds. They have thousands more students which equates to extra resources, enabling them to compete at a high level. The other trend is that all these other teams don't have many players that are from the states, much less local kids. Knights Head Coach Troy Ready has almost exclusively recruited and brought in local kids. There is only one international player on the roster, and that is Gabriel Rincon who is from Maracaibo, Venezuela. Ready has 34 players that are local to the Portland Metro area and just a handful that are out of state (excluding Vancouver, Wash.).

Bottom Line
This has been an amazing run for the Knights. Against all odds, the Knights find themselves as one of the eight remaining teams playing for a national championship. "I'm so proud of this group and what they've accomplished," Athletic Director Matt Gregg said. "I know our school, athletic department, and fans are very proud of what they have achieved and can't wait for what's to come."

The Knights will play next in the Round of Eight on Thursday at 11am against 8th ranked University of the Cumberlands. Tune in on the NAIA Network to watch the Knights compete to show the world why they should be a ranked team.