Inside The Huskies

Oaks Christian Tackle Narrows Choices to UW, 3 Others

Luke Baklenko is the son of a former Husky beach volleyball coach.

Dan Raley

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Luke Baklenko does not look particularly happy in his latest social-media post, which is just the way his future college football team wants him. 

At 6-foot-6 and 300 pounds, this Oaks Christian School offensive tackle has plenty of size to work with. 

Baklenko also hails from a fairly successful high school football program in the Los Angeles area so he should be fundamentally sound. 

However, his demeanor might be what sets him apart from many of the others in his Class of 2023 recruiting class. Put everything together and he looks like he could be a real handful to deal with in the trenches. 

On Monday morning, Baklenko announced he has narrowed his four college schools to Boston College, Stanford, UCLA and Washington, adding that his final decision will come in July. 

The scowling one has a past connection to Montlake — he is the son of former UW beach volleyball coach Jen Baklenko and no doubt grew up around the Husky athletic facilities.

Baklenko, rated as a 3-star prospect and holding 15 offers overall, will next need to take official visits and see which one of these four schools suits him best. 

His mother joined the Huskies' new beach volleyball program in 2014, the same year that Chris Petersen was installed as UW football coach. Luke was in. grade school.

Obviously a lot has has changed in Montlake since the family was part of it. Maybe this big offensive lineman can help change things back. 

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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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