PORTLAND, Ore. – If there's one thing that Portland Pilots women's soccer head coach Michelle French emphasizes, it's putting oneself in a position to "be in it." Whether that's on a micro level play-by-play, on a bigger scale game-by-game or in the grand picture of a whole season, everything the Pilots do is done with the expectation that they're giving themselves a chance.
It's the throughline that has helped the Pilots put together a solid stretch of soccer the last few years. Portland's had four straight seasons of at least nine wins or more for the first time since the early 2010s, establishing themselves as one of the top defenses in the West Coast Conference in the process.