Concordia will open action at Tuominen Yard with a pair of CCC Tournament title games on Saturday.
Title Games to Open New Concordia Stadium
PORTLAND, Ore.—On Saturday, Nov. 12, Concordia University’s men’s and women’s soccer teams will play for Cascade Collegiate Conference tournament championships in a doubleheader set at its new on-campus field inside the Concordia University & Community Athletic Complex.
The CU men will host Corban University at 4 p.m. while the women square off against Northwest University at 7 p.m. with the conference tournament title and automatic berth into the NAIA National Championships on the line.
Grand opening events for the new complex are scheduled for March 3, 2012, but the Cavaliers will break in the new turf soccer field, named Tuominen Yard at the Concordia University & Community Athletic Complex, this weekend. The Complex, which also includes a baseball field, named its soccer pitch after the late Jarkko Tuominen, a ’94 Concordia graduate and two-time soccer All-American for the Cavaliers.
Since being moved off campus more than four years ago, the two Concordia teams have played 85 ‘home’ matches in six different venues around the metro area. The teams hosted the 2007 NAIA Regional tournament 16 miles away at Doc Harris Stadium at Camas High School in Washington. The following year the journey was cut to 15 miles as the squads primarily played at Tualatin Hills Park & Recreation, but with the route cutting directly through downtown Portland during evening commutes, the journey was often extended.
The past three seasons, with a few games sprinkled in at PCC Rock Creek, the CU men and women have called Strasser Field at East Delta Park home; playing a combined 58 matches just five miles up the road on NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Despite the fluctuations, the Concordia women have captured all four CCC tournament championships, extending its streak to 12 straight seasons, while the CU men have won three out of four tournament crowns.
This season, the CU women have maintained a top-10 national rating all season while compiling a 14-4-1 overall record while playing one of the toughest schedules to date. Not far behind, the Concordia men have been handed a defeat just once all year by going 15-1-1 overall and moving up to as high as No. 9 in the NAIA Coaches’ Poll.