POMONA - The California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) men's soccer head coaches have voted Cal Poly Pomona as their favorite to win the league title in this upcoming 2023 campaign.

Cal Poly Pomona is receiving five of the 12 first-place votes and a total of 136 points. The Broncos are followed closely in second by reigning CCAA Tournament champion Cal State LA, the first-time Division II national champion in 2021, with 130 points largely from four first-place nods. Defending CCAA regular-season victor Cal State Dominguez Hills is in third with 123 points and two first-place votes.

There is a bit more separation after those big three area rivals, with Cal State Monterey Bay in fourth at 99 points, Chico State fifth (84 points) and Sonoma State sixth (77). Cal State San Bernardino (73) in seventh grabbed the final first-place vote, with Cal State San Marcos (60), Cal Poly Humboldt (55), San Francisco State (40), Stanislaus State (33) and Cal State East Bay (26) rounding out the poll.

Cal Poly Pomona finished the 2022 season at 11-3-6 overall and 6-1-4 in CCAA play, good enough for third in the table. The Broncos only lost one home match, going 6-1-4 on the Kellogg Stadium surface.

Third-seeded host CPP was nipped by Sonoma State via penalty-kick tiebreaker (7-6) following a scoreless deadlock in a first-round contest of the 2022 CCAA Tournament. The Broncos still qualified at-large for the NCAA Division II Championship for a seventh successive year, dropping a 2-1 decision at eventual national runner-up CSU Pueblo in their tourney opener to end its season after Max Laguna had found the back of the net just 22 seconds in.

Cal Poly Pomona and Cal State LA each boast three standouts on the 10-player CCAA Men's Soccer Preseason Watch List. The CPP trio is made up of senior forward Paul Roger Henschke (Berlin, Germany), senior center back, team captain and fellow All-American Cesar Ruvalcaba (South Gate), and senior goalkeeper CJ Walker (Moorpark). Henschke and Ruvalcaba each earned their second successive All-CCAA First Team nods last fall, while Walker was a first-timer on the second team.

The Broncos led the CCAA and ranked eighth nationally with a shutout percentage of .550 a year ago (11 in 20 games), largely behind Walker and Ruvalcaba in the back. Walker himself topped the league and tied for seventh in all of Division II with nine individual clean sheets in 17 contests. He was also first in the CCAA and 10th nationally in goals-against average (.661). Henschke was No. 1 on the team chart in points (17), goals (six), assists (five), shots (51) and shots on goal (21).

Among the 31 student-athletes on the 2023 Cal Poly Pomona men's soccer roster are 23 returners and eight newcomers. Also back is junior midfielder Mike Moser (4 G, 3 A), who earned All-CCAA honorable mention last fall following a transfer from Missouri Valley College. The first-year group includes three Division I transfers in 6-foot-2 Danish defender Marcus Jorgensen (Louisville), midfielder Josue Varela (four assists for The Big West double champion UC Riverside) and goalie Sucre Herrera (Cal State Bakersfield).

Fifth-year Bronco head coach Matt O'Sullivan has directed the program to back-to-back-to-back winning seasons and is 37-13-13 (.690) overall and 24-3-7 (.809) in league action in charge of CPP, which has advanced to both the CCAA and NCAA postseason in all three of those on-the-field campaigns outside of the 2020 pandemic cancellation. The Broncos lifted the 2019 CCAA Tournament banner, the program's third, in O'Sullivan's first go-around.

Cal Poly Pomona was ranked No. 22 in the United Soccer Coaches Division II Preseason Poll, released back on Aug. 1. The Broncos were in that same spot in the final 2022 listing.

Cal Poly Pomona's 17-match schedule kicks off at home against Biola next Thursday, Aug. 31. Kickoff is slated for 7 p.m. at Kellogg Stadium, as part of a doubleheader after the women's team at 4:30 p.m. The six-game non-conference ledger continues with a home date with Point Loma on Sept. 2, ahead of a road trip to Colorado. CPP will play eight regular-season home contests in all this fall.

The 11-game CCAA round robin begins all the way up in Arcata against Cal Poly Humboldt on Friday, Sept. 29. The first round of the six-team 2023 CCAA Tournament takes place at campus sites on Sunday, Nov. 5, with the semifinals and final back at Cal Poly Humboldt in Arcata on Friday, Nov. 10, and Sunday, Nov. 12, respectively. The champion once again gains the CCAA's automatic entry into the 40-team NCAA Division II Championship.

Home matches and CCAA away contests stream live online via the CCAA Network at www.ccaanetwork.com. Fans can also download the CCAA Network app on an iOS or Android smartphone or tablet, and through web streaming devices such as Amazon Fire, Roku and Apple TV. Subscribers have access to all CCAA broadcasts, both live and on-demand, for the low monthly price of $9.95. Over half of each monthly subscription purchase goes directly back to the CCAA athletics department of your choice to support the student-athlete experience. Sign-ups are available right now at each university's network portal. Just go to CCAAnetwork.com, select your favorite team at the top and click the 'Subscribe' button.

CPP Athletics has gone cashless! Tickets are on sale now for all CPP soccer home matches. Fans are encouraged to purchase tickets online prior to coming to campus at broncoathletics.com/tickets or by downloading the HomeTown Fan app on your smartphone or tablet. Again this year, only debit and credit cards will be accepted at the box office for admission. Limited concession items will be on sale on-site as well, and the concession stand will also only accept debit and credit cards.

Follow the Broncos all season long by going to broncoathletics.com/followus and sign up to receive breaking news and final score updates throughout the year.