Inside The Huskies

UW Offers SoCal Cornerback After Spotting Him at Local Event

Benjamin Alefaio from Orange Lutheran impressed the talent scouts at the Avery Strong College Showcase.
Dan Raley|
UW Offers SoCal Cornerback After Spotting Him at Local Event
UW Offers SoCal Cornerback After Spotting Him at Local Event

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The Avery Strong College Showcase, a Northwest football recruiting event named for the late daughter of well-regarded 247 Sports analyst Brandon Huffman and held at the University of Puget Sound, drew 500 participants.

Some big names were there in Garfield High School quarterback EJ Caminong, a University of Washington commit though still taking visits elsewhere, and Orange Lutheran QB TJ Lateef, from Southern California and holding offers from Georgia and Miami.

Another who took part in the event was Orange Lutheran cornerback Benjamin Alefaio, not nearly so well known as the signal-callers and who came north as of sort of a tag-along with Lateef.

The trip was worthwhile for the 6-foot-1, 190-pound Alefaio, a 2025 prospect. He was named co-MVP among the DBs and left UPS with a scholarship offer over the weekend from Kalen DeBoer's Husky coaching staff. He also holds offers from California and Nevada and took a prior unofficial visit to USC.

Alefaio has become well regarded as a physical, disciplined corner who as a sophomore earned second-team All-Trinity League honors, holding his own in an extremely competitive SoCal conference. For a 7-5 Lancers team, he came away with 23 tackles and 5 pass break-ups.

The Huskies previously had an Orange Lutheran defensive back on the roster in Brandon McKinney, who played four seasons largely as a reserve safety and special-teams player before finishing up a fifth year at Utah.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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