Northwest Club Open Regionals

Just thought I'd start a post that I hope to finish tomorrow...

A few of our best HS players in the country are playing in one of the best regions in the country; The Northwest with the likes of Seattle Sockeye, San Francisco Jam (now known as Justice League), Portland Rhino and the new and upcoming Hippo loosely based in Portland. If you haven't been following the action, you should because four of these teams will be heading to Nationals in a few weeks and very likely winning it.

Also exciting is that at least 2 of the teams at this year's regionals have high school players on their rosters. Already mentioned has been Jacob Janin of South Eugene HS who plays for Hippo. They did fairly well today and kept their number 2 position in their pool. They will be facing Rhino tomorrow morning who had lost to Furious in the Saturday afternoon Semi-final match up. What you might not know is that Jacob Janin's older brother, Eli Janin (sophomore at the UofO and played for Churchill HS in Eugene, OR) continues to play for Rhino. Also making things even more interesting is that both Jacob's and Eli's dad, Jay Janin, plays for Hippo...

What you probably didn't know is that an unknown team named District 7, put as the last seed in the A pool with Sockeye, is made up of (and I can only guess led by) a cast of 3 of best HS players in the country right now from Northwest School in Seattle, WA named Jeremy Norden, Ben Vargus, and Riley (cannot remember your last name). They ended up breaking seed this afternoon to a well known California team named the Oaks. They then got the privilege of playing Blackfish (D3) in Hippo's pool. They beat them by some score (unknown to me) and now will be playing Invictus at 8am Sunday morning. They win that game and they have a 3 more games to make it as the 4th seed and birth to Nationals...

UPDATE: If you didn't already see, Hippo ended up being beat by Rhino who went on to get the 4th seed. Eli Janin now becomes the first Churchill HS graduate to make it to a Club National Level Championship. Congrats to him and good luck to Rhino. Hippo ended up being tied for 6th place (or right around there) and District 7 ended the day somewhere in the 13/14 spot after lossing Sunday to both Invictus (15-3) and then to the Oaks (unknown score). Congrats to all the HS players who did so well in the open series.