It's coming on playoff time in the Pacific Northwest boys HS leagues.
Oregon
Oregon kicks off their semifinals this week with the favored Eastside Tsunami, sitting at 7-0, facing Summit.
This matchup, #1 vs #4, is a bit misleading in that Summit’s opener vs Linn Benton was canceled and never played.
As a result, Summit ended up 4-2, while Beaverton (at #2) and Bend Blues (at #3) are 5-2. Summit, in fact, beat Beaverton. Had they played and beaten Linn Benton we’d likely have seen a three-way tie at 5-2 with 21 standings points. How the tiebreakers work is a question but there’s a possibility we’d have seen a change in the semifinal matchups.
Summit played Eastside on April 19 with the Tsunami winning 39-12.
But maybe the team to keep an eye on is Bend, which beat Summit (who beat Beaverton) but two weeks ago lost 26-24 to Beaverton. Those two meet this weekend.
For Bend Head Coach Jason Gillam, the climb back from COVID interruptions has been a bit of a grind. This is their third year coming back and it’s falling into place.
“We really had a big buy-in with all the boys into the concept of team,” Gillam told GRR.
Led by an excellent back row of senior Garren White and sophomores Miles Schuller and Jettson Gillam, the Blues are possibly the best defensive team in the league.
Cody Calvert leads a very goo strong row, while Kingston Kaniho, Braven Peiler, and Jackson Urbach are dangerous among the backs.
“I personally believe these are players whose names you will hear in the future,” said Gillam.
Of course, it would help if they beat Beaverton.
