For many athletes, college is their last stop before they hang up their cleats and enter the world of the average man, but for others, school is not the last stop on the journey.
Lars Helleren, who played goalkeeper for the Seattle Pacific University men’s soccer team between 2017 and 2022, is one such player—he now plays for the Tacoma Defiance.
The Tacoma Defiance is a Major League Soccer second team. Every MLS team has a first team, which has its usual starting roster and some reserve players, and a second team, which has a further group of reserve players. Tacoma Defiance is the second team of the Seattle Sounders, and they and other second teams are in the MLS Next Pro league.
Helleren started playing soccer when he was only eight years old in his hometown of Edmonds, Washington, for a recreational team called the Red Bombers. He went through many competitive levels of soccer before deciding to continue his athletic career at the collegiate level.
“I remember in high school, I made the decision. I wanted to keep pursuing it and go play college soccer,” Helleren said. “My last year of high school club soccer, I had coach Mark Collings, and he was the SPU coach [at the time], so it was a pretty easy transition.”
Helleren played six seasons with the Falcons due to redshirting his first year and getting an extra year of eligibility due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the 2021 season, SPU finished 12-4-2 overall and had a 6-2-2 in-conference record. Helleren was a vital element of the Falcons’ team that year, with a 1.03 goals-against average, second-best in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference (as well as second in saves with 55, second in shutouts with six, and third in save percentage with .774).
Helleren praised SPU’s coaching staff for knowing how to use his talents.
“They want you as an individual to play to your strengths, so they won’t try to change you to fit how they want to play,” Helleren said. “For me, it was my distribution, so they gave me a lot of freedom and flexibility to build out of the back and use my strength, calmness and composure to my advantage.”
After SPU, Helleren began his professional soccer journey. He had two stints with Ballard FC, a semi-professional team that plays in United Soccer League 2 (USL2) in Ballard, Washington. His first go-around with Ballard was in that team’s inaugural season in 2022, and his second stint was in the 2023 season, just after he graduated.
That second season with Ballard proved to be the most memorable. The team won the USL2 National Championship on August 5, 2023, with a 2-1 victory over Lionsbridge FC. Helleren was the keeper for that game.
“That was probably one of the greatest memories I have in soccer so far,” Helleren said. “We had to sit in quite a bit [during the semifinals], but we absorbed all the pressure and then brought it back to Starfire and won it on our own turf … I can’t exaggerate how cool that was.”
After that, Helleren signed with the Colorado Rapids 2 (the second team of MLS’s Colorado Rapids) for the remainder of the 2023 season before returning to Washington to play with Defiance.
According to Helleren, it is a whole different world in the pros. The first team (i.e., the Seattle Sounders) and the second team share a practice and training facility in Renton, Washington, so Helleren and the other Defiance players get to be close with the Sounders players.
“It’s eye-opening because you’re just casually training with these guys you grew up watching on TV. It took a little time not to be fanboying as much,” Helleren said. “There’s different levels, different standards. What you have to do out there consistently is kind of unreal and setting a high bar for me.”
Now, Helleren has a new role at Defiance. Unlike at SPU, where he was the starting goalkeeper, Helleren is the backup keeper for Tacoma behind Jacob Castro, which puts him fourth in line for the Seattle job – behind Sounders starting keeper Stefan Frei, backup keeper Andrew Thomas and Castro. According to Defiance head coach Hervé Diese, Helleren is well-suited to this role, as he is good on and off the pitch.
“The most important part is we needed to find a goalkeeper who is good enough so that when we call upon him, he does the job but also understands that he’s not going to play a lot of games. You want to find a good human being in the locker room,” Diese said. “With Lars, we found both.”
However, just because Helleren is a backup does not mean he will not play any games. He played in Defiance’s opening match against Austin FC II and helped lead the team to a 3-1 victory, notching five saves. Diese praised Helleren’s versatility as a keeper.
“[Helleren] understands exactly how we want to play … in the sense that when we have the ball, he’s one of our players, so we use him to create numerical superiority, he’s very good with his feet, he can play short, he can play long,” Diese noted. “When he is between the posts, I don’t feel like there’s insecurities in the back. I know he’s going to make a big save, just like the one he did in Austin in the first half.”
For Helleren, being in the Sounders organization is a dream come true.
“I grew up being a Seattle Sounders fan. I have season tickets. It’s a dream come true to be playing. I know my mom was ecstatic,” Helleren said.
According to SPU men’s head coach Kevin Sakuda, having an alum in a professional team inspires current Falcons.
“A lot of my guys have aspirations to keep playing, so anytime you see somebody come to the program and then have success and be able to continue playing, it’s a good visual for the guys to see,” Sakuda said.
Helleren says he is just at the beginning of his professional journey.
“I just want to see how far I can keep this thing going and maybe take it to the next level if I could get there,” Helleren said. “Obviously, I want to try to break into the first team eventually, but I know that requires time, and I gotta keep burning it.”
