Future Pilot on Champion Team

A future Pilot, Stevan Evans, is on the Eastside United team that won a national championship, and sounds like he's a good one:

The Gresham team had chances early, but few provoked tremendous excitement in the parents’ section. That is, until the 30th minute, when Steven Evans (Central Catholic High School) played a ball to Doholis down the right sideline.

Doholis corralled the ball five yards outside the box, and with the
Shattuck-St. Mary’s goalkeeper sprinting out to challenge, Doholis withstood
an awkward collision and struck a looping shot that bounced into the back of
the net from 25 yards out.

. . . .

Evans, who is headed to the University of Portland, took home the Golden Ball award as the player of the tournament in the U-18 division.

LINK

Alright! Congrats to Eastside for winning a National Championship and representing the NW proudly! Can't wait to see Steven...Golden Ball winner... @ the Bluff!

I also read about a kid from....(I think).... Battleground, WA... who won this year's Parade's HS Player of the Year! I believe he chose to go to Duke though. Too bad he didn't chose to stay close to home. Oh well...nice crop of local talent this year....

GO PILOTS!!!

It will be interesting to see how the presence of the MLS franchises in the NW will contribute to development of local talent. One of the requirements for being awarded a franchise is a demonstrated plan for community commitment AND on top of that plans toward either working with local youth clubs or developing their own academy systems. And, just because it's what I know, that includes both recognizing elite talent and putting them on the fast track for the professional ranks and also helping the next tier who are good enough to continue at college (but not quite phenom status), thus helping them earn college scholarships and whatnot (Not a bad thing in my book).

I think if this system gets in place ultimately it will be a lot more effective at recognizing and fostering regional talent than the current (and IMO broken) Brandeton system.

It's great to see the men's program drawing some interest from quality recruits, and hopefully the team will continue to make some strides again.

It's going to take some time to see how well the MLS academy system works up here in Seattle. But, if the system can work well anywhere it's definitely in the Northwest (Portland and Seattle) where the number of teams and current/former players per capita is just higher than the rest of the country...