He has a young team with just eight returners among his 28 players, but it's a high-character bunch that figures to get better as the year unfolds.

"One thing that I like about this group a lot is they're all good teammates, they're coachable, they're good student-athletes," Cumbo says. "We spend a lot of time trying to bring in the best student-athletes we can, but we really focus on character too, so we've been having a good time with them."

The Hawks will open the season at home against Mendocino in nonconference action at 6:30 p.m. on Friday. Seven of the Hawks' first eight games are at home.

Las Positas boasts three strong captains in returning midfielder Adrian Denoncourt, a Dublin High graduate, returning forward Edwin Zabala (Granada) and defender Luis Castillo (Hayward), a newcomer to the program.

"All three of them, they lead in different ways, but in the end they're all really good players and good teammates," Cumbo said of his captains.

The squad has a ton of homegrown talent, topped by seven Dublin High graduates, five from Granada and three from Monte Vista.

The Hawks expect Zabala to create a bunch of scoring chances for himself and others. Denoncourt and Parker Moore (Granada), another returner, will play key roles in the midfield. Newcomers Ryan Hoopes (Granada), Eduardo Angeles (Granada) and Jayden Nguyen (Dublin) are looking solid on the back line, along with Castillo.

Freshman goalkeeper Manny Betancourt, out of Livermore High, is looking good.

Cumbo has guided the LPC men to the playoffs four times since he took over the program in 2016; he's also led the LPC women's team to the playoffs every year since 2019. He also coached at Cal State East Bay and Humboldt State.

In terms of a Hawks' season outlook, Cumbo said "we definitely want to be in the playoffs again, and then we're always competing for a conference championship too. It's still real early and we're real young, but we've got that on the whiteboard. We'll know more about how we're gonna get to these places once we start playing other people."

The Hawks play in a tough Coast-South conference that is annually loaded with playoff qualifiers, so the difficult nonconference schedule could help sharpen the Hawks for the stretch drive.