Photo by Rio Giancarlo – The jacks celebrate their recent victory over Seattle Pacific.

An impressive start to the new season for the Cal Poly Humboldt women’s soccer team has not gone unnoticed.

The Lumberjacks are off to a 3-0-1 start and feature in the latest national Division-II United Soccer Coaches Poll, coming in at No. 24.

The Humboldt women have already posted victories over Central Washington (1-0), Seattle Pacific (4-3) and Dominican (2-1) and also tied highly-ranked Western Oregon 0-0 on Saturday.

The Lumberjacks also went undefeated in five exhibition games with a preseason record of 4-0-1.

Defensively, they have five shutouts in nine appearances this year, in exhibition and regular season games.

In this week’s national poll, the Jacks are the highest ranked team from the California Collegiate Athletic Association.

Junior Emilia Long from Port Angeles in Washington has been instrumental in the early surge and has four goals and a pair of assists to her name, with all four goals coming in an exciting 4-3 win at Seattle Pacific.

Long, who scored the winning goal in the dying seconds, became the first player in program history to net four times in the one game.

It also was the team’s first-ever win over Seattle Pacific.

Ashland University tops the most recent national poll, with Western Oregon at No. 15.

The Humboldt women will host a pair of games at College Creek Field this week, playing Fresno Pacific on Thursday (Sept. 14) at 3 p.m. and Academy of Art on Saturday at 1.

The Jacks will kick off conference play at home to Cal Poly Pomona on Sept. 29.