MONMOUTH, Ore. --- It's sometimes hard to believe the Western Oregon men's soccer program is just entering its fifth year of existence considering the accolades the Wolves have racked up already.

WOU enters 2026 as back-to-back GNAC regular-season champions, it won the inaugural GNAC Championships title last season, have been national ranked for numerous weeks and have been to the NCAA Tournament two years in a row.

The Wolves look to keep the momentum rolling this season under new leadership as Andrew May takes over as interim head coach after Michael Behonick left to take an assistant coaching position at Oregon State in June.

WOU kicks off the season in Salt Lake City on Thursday against MSU Denver before taking on host Westminster on Saturday.

The Wolves, who went 11-5-4 last season and are 36-13-8 the last three seasons, will be looking to replace their top five scorers from a season ago - including leading scorer and First Team All-American Yahir Ocampo Navarro (who is playing his senior season at Division I San Diego State).

However, WOU has plenty of experience still coming back with five players racking up 1,000-plus minutes last year. This includes sophomore defender Eli White who was named Second-Team All-GNAC last season as a freshman playing the third-most minutes for the Wolves (1,612) and adding a goal and an assist. Second-Team All-GNAC Austin Valdez also returns after starting the final 11 games of the season for the Wolves with a goals against average of 0.90 and a save percentage of 0.787.

Senior midfielder Marcos Figueroa returns after starting 14 games last season (1,189 minutes) and accounting for two assists as he's played nearly 2,000 minutes for the Wolves over the last two seasons. Senior defender Javier Blas Casarez is back after starting 13 games last season (1,050 minutes).

Junior midfielder Marcus Vazquez returns as he's started 28 games for WOU over the last two seasons with three goals and five assists - reaching the 1,000-minute mark in each of his first two seasons. 

The top scorers returning from a year ago are junior midfielder Ignacio Brandan and junior winger Evan Huber, who each scored two goals and had one assists with each tallying more than 700 minutes. Junior defender Jaime Villanueva also saw significant time last season with more than 500 minutes in 12 games (five starts) - adding an assist.

The Wolves did add experienced transfers in Isaak Abraham (Seattle University), Will Boyle (CSU Pueblo), Charlie Matsumoto (MSU Denver), Idin Fakhri (Utah Valley), Hayden Galas (Utah Valley), Luis Flores (Merced College), Abokye Bikyeombe (Salt Lake City Community College last season but as at Syracuse the year before) and Jacob Solek (Cal State LA).