2024 USL League One All-League First Team selection Luis Gil will be among 13 players set to return to Spokane Velocity FC for the 2025 campaign. | Photo courtesy Brandon Campea / Union Omaha
SPOKANE, Wash. – Spokane Velocity FC has announced 13 players from its inaugural season in USL League One, which saw the side advance to the 2024 League One Final, will return for the club’s second campaign this spring.
Velocity has exercised contract options on defenders Javier Gil, Marcelo Lage and Camron Miller, and midfielders Jack Denton and Pierre Reedy. Additionally, goalkeeper Carlos Merancio, defenders Ish Jome and Derek Waldeck, midfielders Luis Gil, Collin Fernandez and Andre Lewis, and forwards Anuar Pelaez and Masango Akale will return having previously been under contract for the 2025 season.
Nine of the returning players were part of the starting lineup in Velocity’s League One Final against Union Omaha, with Luis Gil returning after earning All-League One First Team honors after recording five goals, five assists, 38 chances created, and a league-leading 19 possessions won in the final third during the 2024 regular season.
Eight players that recorded at least 20 appearances in the USL League One regular season and playoffs for Velocity are set to return, including the club’s top four players in minutes played in Lage (2,088), Lewis (2,019), Waldeck (1,987) and Luis Gil (1,881).
Velocity also announced goalkeeper Brooks Thompson had returned to the USL Championship’s Hartford Athletic following the conclusion of his loan at the club.