Rose City Roundup: McDaniel boys soccer ties Jesuit, Franklin and Central Catholic cross country excel
We’re now two full weeks into the high school sports season and action is going on all across the city in football, soccer, volleyball and cross country
Each Sunday, we’ll take a look back on the week that was and highlight some of the things you might have missed in Portland prep sports.
Also a programming note, Portland Preps has already crossed over 100 members. Thank you so much to all you early readers for signing up to support this endeavor. It’s provided plenty of motivation to keep things rolling and I’m excited to see how this platform can continue to grow over the next few months.
Tell your friends, share some links and give me some feedback if you got it to help make this place a spot where you can get everything you’d like to know about Portland prep sports.
Enough fourth wall breaking, let’s get to the Rose City Roundup!
Features from this past week
(It's free to sign up and read all these stories!)
Meet Parkrose football's tuba-playing trenchman, Kimball 'Juni' Napaa
Lily Mae Buerkle is changing the culture for McDaniel girls volleyball
'We're all playing for each other:' No. 2 Lincoln boys soccer eyes deep 2025 run
McDaniel boys soccer ties Jesuit
A 0-0 tie often isn’t a very exciting result, but for McDaniel, a 0-0 final against No. 3 Jesuit is a huge reason to celebrate. The Crusaders followed up the tie with a 2-0 win over PIL rival Lincoln as well. The Mountain Lions are 1-1-2 on the year now, and could be a sneaky team in the deep PIL race.
Wells boys soccer comes out hot
Another one of those PIL contenders could be Wells after starting the year 4-0 with a 21-1 goal differential. The Guardians have scored at least five goals in all four games and the only squad to score was a late Clackamas goal. Wells moved into the top 10 of the latest OSAAtoday coaches poll at No. 7.
Tough early test for Grant girls soccer
Four-time 5A defending state champion Wilsonville was able to take down Grant 1-0 on Sept. 9. The Generals are still ranked No. 2 in the latest coaches poll in 6A and they bounced back with a 2-0 win over Tigard. But the loss shows there’s plenty of work to do before taking on 6A No. 1 Jesuit at 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 15.
Grant volleyball gets plenty of home cooking
A young Generals squad is already figuring things out with a current six-match win streak that includes that last four wins on Sept. 13 at their own tournament. Grant took down Sunset, Liberty, Clackamas and Sherwood all in two sets and is up to 7-5 on the year.
Central Catholic volleyball off to a good start
The Rams are already 3-0 in the Mt. Hood Conference and 6-3 overall after taking down Barlow and Sandy this past week. Up next is the big matchup with Nelson going down on the road at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 16.
Portland Christian, Mannahouse Christian volleyball strong out the gates
It’s only been three matches for the Royals, but they’re 3-0 thanks to a five-set win over South Wasco County and a sweep of Country Christian on Sept. 12. The reigning 2A runnerups hope to win one more match in 2025 and take home a second state title in three years.
Over by Interstate 205, Mannahouse Christian in 1A is off to a strong start as well at 6-1 overall. The Lions swept Columbia Christian and CS Lewis Academy this past week to keep the good times rolling.
Lincoln football downs Reynolds for 2-0 start
For the first time since 2015, Lincoln football is off a 2-0 start thanks to a 47-12 win over Reynolds. That 2015 team went 9-0 in the regular season and won two playoff games before falling in the 6A quarterfinals. As for the matchup with Reynolds, Blake Timothy led the way with a receiving TD, a rushing TD and a pick-six. Greyson Murff had over 150 yards rushing and two TDs.
Parkrose football keeps winning
Speaking of 2-0 starts, the Broncos are also 2-0 to start 2025 and it’s the first time that’s happened since 2014 when Parkrose took down St. Helens and La Salle Prep. The second win this year was a 29-7 road win over Southridge.
Cross country roundup
The Franklin boys cross country team took home the team title at the Oregon City XC Invitational with 58 points, besting South Eugene in second with 90. Izaak Mardon was the top finisher, taking this place in a personal-record time of 15 minutes, 44.30 seconds.
On the girls side, Franklin took second as a team with 57 points, falling short of South Eugene in first with 25. Alison Fajardo was the top Lightning finisher in third with a time of 19:16.6.
At Western Oregon University, Wells boys cross country won the Ash Creek Festival title by quite a bit, scoring only 31 points with West Salem in a distant second at 110 points. The Guardians took three of the top four spots with George Lora taking second in a PR time of 15:44.2, Otto Sellers in third at 15:54.0 and Luca Masolo in fourth at a PR time of 15:56.2.
At the Mt. Hood Preview at Blue Lake Regional Park, Central Catholic dominated both races. Starting with the girls, the Rams took first with 22 points ahead of Nelson in second with 57. Marli Phelps won the race in a time of 18:57.36, nearly two minutes ahead of second place.
On the boys side, Central Catholic took eight of the top nine individual spots to score 18 points. Nelson was a distant second with 60. Kaiji Alleman won the race in a time of 15:45.34, meanwhile David Douglas’ Faysal Ibrahim was the one runner to crack the Rams’ armor. He took third in a time of 15:51.94.
