Three Jamestown Soccer Players Make Midwest ODP Interregional Teams

Three of four Jamestown High School soccer players made US Youth Soccer’s Midwest Interregional rosters after July’s ID camp. Goalkeeper Evan Harty and midfielder Grady Eckart landed on the 2009 boys team. Layla Becker landed on the 2010 girls team.

The fourth invitee, Liam Becker, went to Rockford with them. His name does not appear on the published 2009 through 2014 Midwest boys Interregional lists. Harty had said he wanted the camp to put North Dakota on the map. The August lists did that on an 18-player 2009 boys roster that also draws from Illinois, Michigan, Kansas, and Missouri.

Two Blue Jays Land on the Same 18-Player Midwest Team

US Youth Soccer posted the 2026-27 boys Midwest Interregional rosters in August, after the Midwest Summer ID Event in Loves Park. Girls played July 6-8. Boys played July 10-12 at Mercyhealth Sportscore Two, 8800 E. Riverside Blvd. Players paid their own travel, lodging, and meals.

Harty and Eckart are both listed as North Dakota in the 2009 age group. They are the only North Dakota names on the entire boys Midwest Interregional across those birth years. Michigan and Kansas each placed four players on that 2009 team. Illinois placed three. Missouri placed two, the same count as Jamestown.

2009 MIDWEST BOYS INTERREGIONAL, BY STATE

Harty had never been to the regional camp. Eckart was there for a third summer and used the week to chase the next cut. Both are seniors. Both are now on the same 18-player regional team that plays in Florida in January.

The Camp Missouri Filled by the Hundreds

Missouri Youth Soccer Association named more than 150 Missouri players for that same Rockford week. Jamestown sent four. The ID camp is a state association’s ticket into a regional pool, so a large state can flood the fields and a small one still has to find its two or three.

THE SIZE GAP AT THE SAME CAMP

• Missouri ID call-ups: More than 150 players were named for the July girls and boys windows in Loves Park.
• Jamestown ID group: Four Blue Jays got the same invite after Dakota evaluation camps.
• ND boys who survived the cut: Two, both 2009, both from Jamestown High School.
• ND girls named in August: Layla Becker (2010) and Mackenzie Schmitcke (2013 Older).

That gap is the point of the August lists. Volume at the ID camp does not lock Interregional seats. Two boys from one North Dakota high school still took two of 18 spots on the oldest Midwest boys team.

Why ODP Still Matters Without an MLS Academy

US Youth Soccer’s own materials say the Olympic Development Program was formed in 1977 to build an age-group pool for national teams, to train players, and to share coaching ideas. The current program page describes ODP as a supplemental track for strong club players, not as the only road up.

The four-stage Olympic Development Program pathway is the same in every state. A player tries out for a state team, goes to a Summer ID camp, can be named to a regional Interregional roster, and can then be pulled onto a National Select Team.

THE FOUR STAGES OF ODP

• State team: Players try out locally and train with licensed state staff through the year.
• Summer ID camps: Regional coaches watch state players and name four regional rosters.
• Interregionals: East, Midwest, South, and West meet in front of national coaches, scouts, and college staff.
• National Select: Staff draw from those regional teams for a group that travels abroad.

Club platforms now sit in front of that ladder for most metro families. MLS launched MLS Next in 2020 after U.S. Soccer shut down the Development Academy, and league academies are now a main feeder into the men’s youth pool. A recent league feature on MLS academies feeding the USMNT pool treats that club track as the engine. North Dakota does not host that engine. ODP is still the statewide tryout that does not require an academy zip code.

US Youth Soccer still prints the alumni case. Six members of the 2026 U.S. Men’s National Team World Cup roster played in ODP, including Tim Ream, a Missouri product who came through the Midwest region. The program is older than MLS Next. It is also no longer the default door for a boy in Chicago or a girl on an ECNL roster. In Jamestown it remains a door that opens.

The Harty Family Already Walked This Camp Path

Harty is the son of Brandi Harty, the Blue Jays boys coach, who played at the University of Jamestown and coached in Minot and Bismarck before taking the high school job. He started in goal in the fall of 2025 and posted four shutouts. He had been a baseball player too, then dropped that sport because he felt closer to soccer and because the house was already full of it.

His brother Brady, a Jamestown Class of 2025 graduate, went to the regional ODP camp five times, then to the Steven Gerrard Academy in England, then to college soccer in Alabama. A sister, Madelyn, plays as well. Evan used that trail as his brief for the first regional week.

I would like to say how grateful I am for this opportunity and that me and Grady Eckart will be going into this camp trying to put ourselves and North Dakota on the map.

Evan Harty, Jamestown High School goalkeeper

After the camp he said he looked at clips from the previous high school season and barely recognized himself. Eckart, a senior captain who has started in midfield since his sophomore year, had already been through two regional camps and treated the third as a bid for Interregional. He said he wanted better decisions, cleaner technique, and work he could carry into the high school season. Both got the August call.

Layla Becker Makes Florida With Her Father on Staff

Layla Becker is a junior. She has been on the Jamestown varsity since seventh grade and led the girls in scoring in the spring of 2026 with six goals and six assists for 12 points. This was her fifth ODP regional camp. She also played club with Dakota Fusion, including a U.S. Youth Soccer National Presidents Cup trip to Tampa in July 2025.

Her father, Nick Becker, is the University of Jamestown women’s soccer coach. He has helped run Dakota ODP camps, and US Youth Soccer lists him as an assistant coach on the 2009 girls Midwest Interregional staff, a different age group from his daughter’s 2010 player roster. In 2024 he said his own parents spent a decade starting soccer programs in South Dakota towns, including Groton, before the family settled in the Buffalo City. Layla began playing at 4. She is the eldest Becker child. Liam is on the high school boys team.

It’s harder to get opportunities when I live in a small town with not much soccer competition as the other girls have.

Layla Becker, Jamestown High School forward

She told the same interview her end goal for the three-day regional week, which she said ran five sessions of about two hours each, was the Interregional in Florida and a look at the U.S. youth national pool. She is on that 2010 Midwest girls roster. Girls Interregional selections were due Aug. 10. The 2010 list also includes players from Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Big-club girls from those states already treat the Florida week as a national-team step. Becker wrote the same target down before she had the roster spot.

A 1-1 Draw Ends the Blue Jays’ State Bid

North Dakota runs one division of boys soccer in the fall. The first contest date was Aug. 14. The regular season deadline is Oct. 10. The state tournament is Oct. 15-17 at Fargo North High School. Jamestown will not be there.

On Sept. 29, Eckart scored in the 53rd minute for a 1-1 draw with Legacy at the MDU Resources Community Bowl, set up by Liam Becker, for his team-leading eighth goal. Harty made six saves. Jamestown outshot Legacy 11-7 and still left Bismarck at 3-8-3 in the WDA, eliminated from state contention. Legacy was 1-9-4.

The regional week did not rewrite the high school table. It did put the same three names, plus a fourth who remained in the Jamestown midfield, back into a small-school lineup that has now missed the eight-team state field. Eckart had said in July he wanted the camp to help the high school season. The season then asked him to score in a dead-heat that ended the bid.

ChampionsGate Comes Next for Three Blue Jays

The girls Interregional is Nov. 21-25 at the ChampionsGate Sports Field Complex near Orlando, with lodging tied to the Omni. The boys Interregional is Jan. 14-18, 2027, at the same Florida site. Regional teams from East, South, West, and Midwest meet there. National coaches and college staff are the audience the program advertises.

THE PATH FROM ROCKFORD TO FLORIDA

1. July 6-8, 2026: Girls Midwest Summer ID camp at Mercyhealth Sportscore Two in Loves Park.
2. July 10-12, 2026: Boys Midwest Summer ID camp at the same complex.
3. August 10, 2026: Girls Interregional selections due; Layla Becker is named to the 2010 Midwest team.
4. August 17, 2026: Boys Interregional selections due; Evan Harty and Grady Eckart are named to the 2009 Midwest team.
5. November 21-25, 2026: Girls Interregional at ChampionsGate, Florida.
6. January 14-18, 2027: Boys Interregional at ChampionsGate, Florida.

Jamestown Soccer Club dates to 1978. Nick Becker and Tommy Nienhaus, hired through the University of Jamestown soccer program, spent years pushing ODP onto local families when the town still treated it as a rumor. In 2021, four Jamestown club players, including Brady Harty, made the same Rockford camp. The 2026 group converted three of those regional weeks into Interregional jerseys.

Harty, Eckart, and Becker now hold those roster spots. The National Select cut sits after Florida, and it is a smaller door than the one they just walked through. The dates are on the calendar, and the names are on the lists.