PORTLAND, Ore. --- The Portland Pilots beach volleyball team will open their 2018 season at the Big West/ West Coast Conference Challenge tournament in Santa Cruz, Calif. The Pilots, along with San Francisco and Pacific, will take on competitors from the Big West conference, Sac State, Cal State Northridge, and No.6 Cal Poly.
 
"We are excited to kick off our 2018 season with some great competition in Santa Cruz," said head coach Jeff Baxter. "The team has been working hard to improve and are eager to step on the sand for a duel."
 
The Pilots will first take on Sacramento State, Saturday morning at 8:00 a.m., before they face CSUN at 12:00 p.m. Sac State is currently winless in their 2018 campaign, falling to WCC opponents Pacific, Saint Mary's, Santa Clara, as well as then-No.16 Stanford at the Stanford Tournament last weekend. CSUN enters the weekend coming off of a 4-1 win over Concordia to put them at 3-1 on the season.
 
Portland will then battle Cal Poly, who recently moved up to No.6 in the AVCA rankings, in the tournament finale. The ranking marks the highest ever for the Mustang program, with a 7-2 record. Cal Poly defeated 2017 national runner up Pepperdine a few week ago 3-2, but fell to the 2017 national champion USC the next day.
 
This will be the first meeting between the Pilots and all three schools.