Saddleback men’s soccer team aims high for the upcoming season

Saddleback men’s soccer team trains on Aug. 19. Nathan Porter | Lariat

The Saddleback College men’s soccer team hasn’t been around for long as their inaugural season was just 3 years ago.

Plenty of other teams in the area had been around far longer  and were much more experienced, so it looked like a tough task to get the team where it would be competitive.

Despite these worries, the team has made an immediate impact and has shown to be a force to be reckoned with in Orange County and Southern California as a whole.

In 2023, their debut season, the team finished 3rd in the Orange Empire Conference Table. In the following season in 2024, the team did even better finishing 3rd again and went all the way to the regional semifinals. An impressive achievement for a team so young.

The next season in 2025 was disappointing however, as the team recorded its lowest position so far, finishing 5th and missing the playoffs.

Despite the underwhelming season, the team still started off better than anyone could’ve imagined. head coach BJ McNicol, who has guided the program since its beginning, couldn’t be happier with how things have gone both on and off the pitch.

“As a new program, we’ve had a great start so far,” McNicol said. “We’ve helped multiple players get recruited to play at the NCAA D2 level and have won the National College Team Academic Award from the United Soccer Coaches every year so far.”

McNicol, who’s been at  Saddleback since 2012, has also coached the women’s team for 14 years, which has become one of the most women’s successful teams in college soccer, McNicol and hopes to achieve that same success with the men’s team one day.

“The college has been great at supporting the new Men’s program” McNicol said.” We are working to lay the foundation so we can catch up to our Women’s program which is currently ranked 4th in the country and the highest ranked team in Southern California.”

Of course finishing 5th last season simply wasn’t good enough and McNicol and his coaching staff know it.

“Defensively we were not up to our standard in 2025” McNicol said. “We didn’t do a good enough job of not conceding easy goals which made it hard to get positive results. That has been a focus for our staff and players this Summer.“

McNicol also stated the goal for this season was pretty straight forward.

“This season the goal is to continue to grow the program, compete to win the OEC and get back into the CCCAA playoffs.” 

The Country had also hosted the World Cup this Summer, which many say has sparked a high interest in the sport here and McNicol agrees.

“Soccer is well supported on both the Men’s and Women’s side in South Orange County and the World Cup definitely helped to bring a spotlight to our sport”

Saddleback’s season has not started the way the team had hoped for, with defeats to both Miracosta and Cerritos. However, with a long season ahead, the team will have plenty of opportunities to bounce back and work toward its goal of returning to the playoffs and potentially even lifting some hardware.    

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