By Brad Hoiseth

The Orange Empire Conference has long been a power in California community college women's soccer, winning five of the past 18 state championships and finishing runner-up eight more times since 2001.  The nine-team conference is again loaded with talent and should be a tight battle to the finish. 

The 2016 season starts with an early poll put out by the sports information directors in the conference, who were all solicited to make their picks.  The results show Santiago Canyon College with a narrow lead over both Cypress College and Saddleback College, who tied for second.  Santiago Canyon garnered four of the first place votes with Saddleback collecting the other two. 

Santiago Canyon has won the past 12 Orange Empire Conference titles and survived by two points over Saddleback in 2015.  They have played in five of the past nine state championship games, winning the title in 2006 and 2009.  The Hawks have never lost more than three games in any season since 2004.  SCC took home four first place votes from the SID's and finished with 51 total points out of 54. 

Saddleback came within an eyelash of knocking off Santiago Canyon last season and handed the Hawks two of their three losses.  The Gauchos were derailed from capturing the conference title by Golden West College, a program that finished up in six place in the standings.  Saddleback lost to the Rustlers 2-1 in the first half of the conference schedule and then tied GWC late.  The Gauchos were 11-1-1 against the rest of the OEC in 2015.  Saddleback finished with 46 points in the poll, collecting two first place votes. 

Cypress has long been a power in women's soccer and finished third in the Orange Empire Conference last fall.  The Chargers won three state titles from 1998 to 2004 and have consistently been in the conversation when it comes to the state playoffs.  Like Saddleback, however, they have not won a conference title in 12 years since Santiago Canyon started its run and would love to get back into the winner's circle.  Cypress suffered two losses to Saddleback in 2015, which put their OEC title hopes on ice.  Cypress didn't garner any first place votes in the poll, but took home four of the six second place votes.

OEC Poll Results (first place votes)

Santiago Canyon 51 (4)
Saddleback 46 (2)
Cypress 46
Orange Coast 34
Irvine Valley 25
Golden West 24
Fullerton 21
Santa Ana 17
Norco 6