Pride men's soccer moves up to No. 20 in first regular season NAIA Coaches' Poll of 2025
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Starting the 2025 season as an NAIA ranked team in the preseason for the first time in program history, the Clarke University men's soccer team moved up three spots in the first in-season poll of the year, moving to No. 20 in Wednesday's poll released by the NAIA.
The Pride received 143 voting points to tie for that 20th spot with Mobile University as CU has started their 2025 campaign with an unbeaten 2-0-2 record that includes victories over Oakland City University and Midland University along with draws at Judson and most recently at home against then No. 7 ranked and now No. 9 ranked Bellevue University.
Clarke is the fifth Heart of America Athletic Conference team mentioned in the poll as they sit behind No. 3 MidAmerica Nazarene University, No. 5 William Penn University, No. 13 Baker University, and No. 14 Missouri Valley College, making the Heart one of the most represented conferences in the rankings.
So far over their first four games, the Pride have scored five goals and have five assists while allowing just two goals against, allowing a goal apiece in their two games away from Burrows Field and producing back-to-back shutouts in the form of a 2-0 win over the Warriors and a 0-0 draw against the Bruins last Saturday.
Leading the charge for that defensive effort is a back line that has consisted mainly of center backs Nearco Zamorano and Carles Aparisi with Xzavier Campa and Daniel Valverde flanking them on the outsides, also providing offensive support with Campa recording an assist and Valverde taking three total shots.
In goal, Lucas Fontana has made three of the four starts at goalkeeper for Clarke to record 15 total saves and just one goal against for a 1-0-2 record with nine of those 15 saves coming in the back-to-back shutout efforts in their previous two home games for the graduate transfer from Chicago State.
Offensively, the Pride have spread around the glory with five different goal scorers on the season with Zamorano scoring on a header off a corner kick in CU's opener, Hector Medrano notching a game-winning goal against Oakland City, Alvaro Martinez scoring his own header goal against Midland, then William Arana and Javi Munoz recording a goal and an assist so far on the season along with Campa, Alfonso Gonzalez, and Yuto Nishio all contributing assists.
The full NAIA release can be found here: https://www.naia.org/sports/msoc/2025-26/releases/Poll_1
Clarke men's soccer will play their next game on the road as their first Heart of America Athletic Conference matchup of the 2025 season when they travel to Parkville, Mo. for a matchup against Park University with a 2:30 p.m. CT scheduled kickoff between the Pride and Pirates on Saturday, Sept. 6.
Their next home game will be a matchup against No. 5 William Penn at Burrows Field on Tuesday, Sept. 9 with a scheduled 5:00 p.m. CT kickoff between the ranked rivals.