Two years ago, Chris Carlson recruited what turned out to be a national championship team last season at North Idaho College - the first in the program's history.

But that group is now gone, leaving lots of holes to fill for the Cardinal women's basketball coach.

"It was fun to watch that video (showing NIC winning the national title last year)," Carlson said the other day, at an NIC booster club function at The Coeur d'Alene Resort. "I feel like I have to let it go and grow up and get ready for another season, and I don't want to."

Starting point guard Korina Baker is attracting recruiting interest from Long Island University and SMU, and reserve forward Julia Salmio, from Finland, is also catching the eye of coaches at the next level, Carlson said.

Among the newcomers are a pair of local grads, Tori Davenport (Post Falls High) and Hailey Petit (Coeur d'Alene High).

Ashleigh Kelman-Poto, a 6-foot post from New Zealand, originally signed with Idaho, but was steered to NIC by Vandals coach Jon Newlee.

"It's going to be a tough road to hoe, being national champs and three-time regional champs, but we're going to defend it the best we can," Carlson said.

NIC wrestling coach Pat Whitcomb heads a program that has won 13 national titles, and is coming off a runner-up finish at nationals last year in Spokane.

His next dual win will be his 200th as Cardinals coach.

But he's just as excited about what his program does off the mat. This year the Cardinal wrestlers will give out their 9,000th book to first-graders in Coeur d'Alene, as part of the Shirley Parker Reading Program. And the Cardinals are also into raising awareness for breast cancer.

"It's not a question of 'if' we're going to win - we're going to win," Whitcomb said. "But it's how we're going to go about it."

Jared Phay, in his eighth season as NIC men’s basketball coach, is trying to get the Cardinals back to nationals for the first time since 1997. But it hasn’t been easy in the ultra-competitive Scenic West Athletic Conference.

He noted that last year, the College of Southern Idaho won the national title. The year before, the College of Eastern Utah was third at nationals. In 2009, Salt Lake Community College won the national title and in 2008, Salt Lake was second.

And in three of those four years, the Region 18 champion wasn’t the conference champ.

“There’s a fine line in our conference between being fifth place to being a national championship contender,” Phay said.

NIC softball coach Don Don Williams was perhaps a different bounce away from coming home with a national title with the NIC softball team in 2007.

The Cardinals are in the midst of fall ball now. When the spring season rolls around, she said there may be as few as four sophomores on the field for NIC — in a conference where last year’s national runner-up, Salt Lake, returns nine players, including its top pitcher, and CSI brings back eight.

“What’s it going to take to win the SWAC? It’s going to come down to who produces in the circle, and who scores the most runs,” Williams said.

NJCAA’s golf nationals are in the spring, but teams play a few fall tourneys. One of NIC coach Derrick Thompson’s recruits is Dylan Morrison of Australia, where the grass is apparently brown. Imagine his reaction the first time he stepped onto The Coeur d’Alene Resort Course.

“He actually didn’t know that grass could be green,” Thompson said.

Thompson has three local men’s recruits in Spencer Skipper (Lake City High), Brennan Stillinger (Coeur d’Alene High) and John Forsman (Lewiston).

“They’ve spent the last few years competing against each other. Now they find themselves rooting for each other, and I don’t think they’re quite comfortable with that yet,” Thompson said.

NIC’s volleyball team got off to a slow start this season, partly due to inexperience and partly due to injuries — even Kandice Kelly, the Cardinals’ first-year coach, was seen walking with a limp the other day.

“Oh, my gosh, this is going to be a long season,” Kelly said to her assistant coach after a loss at a tournament the first weekend of the year.

But the Cardinals have gotten better every weekend since that, Kelly said, and last weekend took the first two games from powerful Salt Lake before losing in five games on the road.

Saturday, NIC finally plays its home opener vs. CSI.

“In their (the players’) mind and in my mind, we can beat them,” Kelly said.

NIC’s women’s soccer team, off to a 9-0 start heading into Wednesday’s home game vs. Community Colleges of Spokane, had allowed just five goals in nine games.

“That was a goal of mine, to make sure we were defending as well as we were attacking,” Cardinals coach Dan Hogan said.

NIC has some tough games ahead before the district tournament, including one in Laramie, Wyo., vs. Laramie County.

“We still have to keep improving — we can’t relax because we’re 9-0,” Hogan said.

NIC men’s soccer coach Ken Thompson has a law degree from American University in Washington, D.C., and says “everyone rolls their eyes” when he tells them he chose to become a soccer coach instead.

But Thompson, who played at Coeur d’Alene High, Seattle Pacific and Gonzaga, said while in law school, he also played in a highly competitive men’s league in D.C., and “the thing I couldn’t get off my mind was the chance to teach soccer to young people.”

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com.