Seahorses

Since February 2024 the team has played in USL League Two as the Southern California Eagles, having dropped the Seahorses name so that it matched the other teams run by Missionary Athletes International (MAI). The squad still plays in the Southwest Division, and in Whittier, on the campus of Whittier College, supporters still say "SoCal".

The parent body explains the club better than the league does. MAI, which has run since 1983, is a missionary sports organisation, and the men's team is its entry in the Premier Development League (now USL League Two), which it joined in 2001. Players arrive, spend a summer in navy blue, white and orange, and leave for the professional game.

Steven Lenhart is the clearest case: the Columbus Crew drafted him, and he was part of the side that won MLS Cup in 2008. Eric Reed was named PDL Goalkeeper of the Year in 2006, the same year the club took the Southwest Division title. Four years earlier, in 2002, the Seahorses won the Western Conference and reached the national semifinals, where Boulder Rapids Reserve beat them. They have never won the national championship.

The bitterest rivalry belonged to the PDL years, and it was with Orange County Blue Star, a Southwest Division opponent in the same part of the state. Blue Star folded in 2012. Ventura County Fusion, Capo FC and Redlands FC are the sides that now make the division awkward, though none of those meetings has a name of its own.