Jose Arenas completed his fourth season as an assistant coach in 2025 after two seasons as the program's Director of Operations (2020-21).
Year by Year:
2025: Coming off the program's second trip to the College Cup, Denver played the sixth-hardest schedule in the country and went 9-7-2 in the regular season, claiming the program's 11th Summit League regular season title at 4-1-1. After falling in the league title match a year ago, Denver threw punches in the 2025 tournament, defeating Oral Roberts 4-1 in the semifinal before defeating No. 21 Kansas City 4-2 in the Summit League Final on November 15.
In the Pioneers trip to the NCAA Tournament, Denver got goals from Kyle McGowan and Luke Schultz within 3:17 of eachother to defeat UC Irvine in the NCAA First Round, punching the program's eighth trip to the second round in 11 seasons under Franks. The Pioneers returned to the Pacific Northwest for the NCAA Second Round, ending its season for the second year in a row in a penalty shootout.
Denver earned three major awards from the Summit League postseason honors. Kyle McGowan was named the Summit League Offensive Player of the Year, Trevor Wright was named the Summit League Defensive Player of the Year and Isaac Nehme was named the Summit League Goalkeeper of the Year.
Following his performance in the Summit League Tournament, Keegan Kelly was named the Summit League Tournament Most Outstanding Player and was later named the Top Drawer Soccer National Player of the Week after scoring a natural hat trick against Oral Roberts in the semifinal and another goal in the Summit League Final against Kansas City.
Wright and Nehme were named to the United Soccer Coaches All-Region Team. For his work in the classroom, Aidan Semelsberger was named to the CSC Academic All-America First Team, the 12th men's soccer player to earn Academic All-American honors, including the fourth in the last three years. Semelsberger is the 26th first team selection in the athletic department's history, including the sixth men's soccer first team selection.
2024: Denver continued its scheduling philosophy in 2024, and by all accounts made it even harder in a year that he returned a lot of upperclassmen starters to his lineup. The Pioneers played their first six matches on the road before the start of the academic calendar, a stretch that included five matches against schools from the Power-4, and mid-western neighbors Creighton from the BIG EAST. Denver opened 3-0-3 in that stretch to earn as high as the top spot in the national rankings according to Top Drawer Soccer. The Pioneers followed that road stretch up with a 4-0-1 homestand to begin the first 11 matches unbeaten.
Following a busy slate, Denver suffered its first two losses of the season in back-to-back trips to No. 1 Pitt and Kansas City. Denver quickly moved on from the two setbacks to win its final five matches of the regular season and claim another Summit League regular season title.
After playing a double round robin and splitting its two matches with Kansas City in the regular season, the Roos bested the Pioneers in the Summit League Final by a count of 2-1 after the Pios were reduced to 10 men in the second half.
Denver still earned its highest seed in the NCAA Tournament in program history, the No. 3 seed. After getting stuck with second-round knockouts the last several years, Denver got three matches at home in the NCAA Tournament and earned a 3-0 win over Gardner-Webb, a 1-0 win over [14] Indiana and a 3-0 win over UMass to get back to the College Cup for the first time since 2016. The Pioneers went on to fall on penalties in the semifinal after a 1-1 draw with eventual national champions Vermont.
In the Summit League postseason awards, Sam Bassett was named the Summit League Midfielder of the Year for the second-straight year, Ronan Wynne earned his second Summit League Defensive Player of the Year award and Isaac Nehme was named the Summit League Goalkeeper of the Year for the second time in his three-year career. In total eight Pioneers earned All-Summit League honors, including six first-team selections.
As a team, Denver ranked eighth in the country in goals against average (0.775) and 27th in the country in scoring offense, averaging 1.91 goals per game. Denver's goal total of 44 set a new single-season record in program history, while the 58 assists were also a program record.
Wynne and Bassett were named College Sports Communicators Second and Third Team Academic All-Americans, respectively.
2023: Denver’s schedule had some of the usual suspects when they once again were tested with one of the top non-conference schedules in the country in 2023, but got a fair few of them at home this time around. Denver opened with a 2-0-2 start to the season that included a 3-1 win over then-No. 11 SMU. The Pioneers went on to finish the season-opening six-match homestand unbeaten at 4-0-2.
Denver went 7-0-1 in Summit League regular season play to bring home the program’s ninth regular season title since joining the league in 2013.
Kansas City came from behind to beat the Pios in penalties in the Summit League Tournament, but the Pioneers rebounded with a 2-1 win against LIU in the first round of the NCAA Tournament at the University of Denver Soccer Stadium before being asked to return to No. 6 SMU in the second round. The Pios comeback fell just short, falling 2-1 despite peppering the goal in the final minutes.
Denver put 10 student-athletes on the All-Summit League teams, including Sam Bassett earning Midfielder of the Year, Jason Belloli being named the Defensive Player of the Year and Isaac Nehme being named the Goalkeeper of the Year.
The Pioneers put three student-athletes on the USC All-Region Team, and Sam Bassett was named a Second Team All-America pick, Denver’s first honoree since 2018. Bassett was the third different honoree under Franks, joining Reagan Dunk (2015/2016) and Andre Shinyashiki (2018). Jason Belloli was named a CSC First Team Academic All-American for his work on the field and in the classroom.
2022: Denver put itself up against the nation's best once again in 2022, most of the time away from home, but opened the season 9-2-5 in its first 16 matches before winning five of its first six in November. Following a season-opening home win over Gonzaga, the Pioneers started a five-match road swing. Denver won its 2021 NCAA Tournament rematch at Grand Canyon before beating 9th-ranked Maryland in College Park 2-0. Denver earned a 1-1 draw at No. 19 Georgetown and defeated UC San Diego before dropping its first match of the season at San Diego State.
Denver dominated Portland in a top-15 clash at the University of Denver Soccer Stadium, but couldn't put it in the back of the net in a 0-0 draw. The Pios then lost to Oregon State, having played down a man the entire second half. Denver's defense kept four-straight clean sheets that included 1-0 Summit League wins against Oral Roberts and at Omaha before defeating No. 21 Virginia on the road 1-0.
DU drew the next three before going on a seven-match winning streak that included another Summit League Tournament title and a 1-0 overtime win over San Diego in the NCAA First Round. In the Summit League Final against Kansas City, Denver won 3-0 and outshot the visitors 20-2. No. 9 Denver and No. 4 Duke played in the NCAA Second Round in Durham, with the Blue Devils winning 3-1.
Denver finished third in the country in shutout percentage (0.591), seventh in goals against average (0.675), 15th in goal differential (+26), 16th in shot accuracy (0.479) and 24th in total goals (41).
Before Denver:
Arenas was a member of the Laramie County Community College (WY) men's soccer coaching staff for nine seasons as an assistant coach. He joined the Golden Eagles staff at Laramie County after spending one season at McPherson College (KS).
During his time on staff at Laramie County, he helped lead the Golden Eagles to six regular season Region IX Championships, three Region IX Tournament Championships, a North Central District Championship and NJCAA National Tournament Final Four.
Arenas helped produce six Region IX Freshman of the Year award winners, three Region IX Players of the Year, seven Junior College All-Americans and was a part of two United Soccer Coaches Region Staffs of the Year.
Arenas has his United Soccer Coaches Premier Diploma, coached youth teams for the Cheyenne Soccer Club and served as the Director of Coaching for the club. In 2016, he was named to the United Soccer Coaches "30 Under 30".
Playing Career:
The Cheyenne, Wyo., native played for Laramie County for two seasons before transferring to McPherson College ('11). As a player, he earned All-Conference honors at both programs and helped McPherson College reach the national tournament for the first time in school history in 2008.
