Eagles ready to tackle NWOC girls soccer challenge Head

HOOD RIVER — Seven graduated seniors from the 2025 team cut into the depth of the Hood River Valley girls soccer program, but Coach Kevin Haspela’s squad remains one of the top contenders to win the revamped Northwest Oregon Conference this fall.

The Eagles open their 2026 season Sept. 1 vs. visiting Ridgeview, a team which lost just one player to graduation this past June.

The group of HRV’s returning players also is a solid one — 10 deep with varsity experience — led by senior captains Ainsley Chown and Keira Brennan. They are surrounded by numerous skilled returning starters. They include second-term all-league picks Josie Faaborg and Lily Clermont, both juniors, and sophomore midfielder Ellie Kinsfogel. Brennan earned honorable mention all-league status in 2025.

Also returning with varsity experience are five juniors: Cate Sullivan, Alyra Elliott, Cate Haspela, Uma Carosella, and Ellie Giordano. Five freshmen are also on the varsity roster, trying to extend the Eagles’ OSAA Class 5A state playoff streak to three seasons.

Coach Haspela and his assistants, Vanessa Silva and Dameon Solorzano, guided the Eagles to a 6-2 NWOC record (10-5-1 overall) and the league’s No. 3 seed in the 2025 OSAA Class 5A playoffs. Hood River finished in a three-way tie for second with La Salle Prep and Putnam — behind NWOC champion Wilsonville. It was HRV’s highest finish in the conference girls soccer standings in the four years it had been part of the NWOC.

Wilsonville, La Salle Prep, Canby and Hillsboro were moved to a different league, but Putnam returns as HRV’s likely challenger for conference supremacy in year No. 5. The Kingsmen have qualified for the OSAA 5A girls soccer playoffs every season starting in 2019.

HRV is on a mini-playoff run of its own. It had a playoff streak of six seasons from 2014 to 2019 interrupted by the COVID year of 2020 and then a three-year lull from postseason play until the 2024 breakthrough season. Chown and Brennan were sophomores on that squad, and now, as seniors, are looking to extend the playoff run to three seasons.

NOTE: One adjustment for NWOC teams this fall is with seven teams in the league, conference matches don’t begin until October. Among other things, that puts a premium on non-league schedules as far as OSAA rankings are concerned. The top two NWOC teams make the state playoffs, as do five at-large teams not qualified through their league results.

In that regard, kudos to HRV Athletic Director Sean Mailey’s scheduling prowess. Seven of HRV’s nine non-league matches this fall are against 2025 state playoff teams.

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