Who knows how it will all end up in Washington, but the boys high school league in the Evergreen State seems to be as tight as any in the nation.

In last place going into this weekend, the defending state champions, Seattle, fell behind 26-7 to Kent before turning it all about and scoring four unanswered tries in the second half to win. HS All American Will Brennan scored an early try that woke the Vikings up, and scored another later, while Connor Miller scored the winner with ten minutes left.

Despite losing a big lead on Saturday, Kent still is right in the middle of things. Locke Bradley photo.

"At halftime, we just told the boys, you can continue to play like this and get beat by 60 points, or you can compete, and they chose to compete," said Head Coach Steve Brennan.

That victory put Seattle at 2-4 and certainly in the hunt. Meanwhile, Liberty moved to 5-1 with a 34-0 defeat of Eastside. Budd Bay won by forfeit over Chuckanut.

What that all means is that the race for the top four (and a place in the semifinals) is far from over. Liberty is in command at 5-1, but they were beaten by Budd Bay, and those self-same Barbarians always finish strong. Kent and Chuckanut are, like Budd Bay, at 3-3, while Eastside and Seattle are just a game back.

"I really like that we have a long season - ten games - and we play everyone twice," said Brennan. "It gives us a chance to work our way into the season. If you don't start well, you can come back. Three of our losses were games in which we had the lead in the second half. There are little things we know we can fix to move on. We feel that all we have to do now is win three more games and we're in the top four."

Everyone else feels that way, too. This coming weekend, Budd Bay hosts Eastside in a must-win for Eastside. Liberty is at Kent in a game that the Patriots could let slip, and Seattle hosts a Chuckanut team that has several top players on tour with their U17s in Australia.