SPIRIT LAKE — With every setback can come a return that winds up being the stuff of legends.

For Timberlake High senior midfielder Cody Bentley, it’s not so much that he’s back on the soccer field after suffering a season-ending broken right leg in the 2015 3A District 1-2 boys championship match.

It has been how he’s done it.

“Physical therapy, physical therapy, physical therapy,” Cody said. “I just did a lot of physical therapy.”

Bentley, who also served as the school’s kicker/punter on the football team, missed not only the final part of the soccer season, but Timberlake’s run to the state football playoffs.

“Even when I had the injury, there was still times I was able to be at the sports I was still doing,” Cody said. “Even after breaking the bone, and had that long cast on my leg, I ended up breaking a set of crutches when our quarterback got nailed on the sideline and he was lost for the season. Just still being at those sports, and throughout the winter when my club (soccer) team was still training, I was going to practices and just easing back into things and just trying not to get disconnected to what was going on.”

Connor Quinn, a orthopedic surgeon based in Coeur d’Alene who played soccer at Lake City High as well as Gonzaga University, performed his surgery.

“They were both able to understand the goals and importance of it healing right and that we’re not going to have any issues,” said Bert Bentley, Cody’s father and coach of the Timberlake boys soccer team. “From a timing standpoint, we got lucky because it was his junior year, and not his senior year. It has worked out OK so far. But it was nice to get a break from playing for sure and have some time away.”

At first, it seemed as if that time could be extended a little into the fall season.

“Initially, I wasn’t really sure what was going to happen,” Bert said. “We got out there and kicked some football during the summer, and his leg strength just wasn’t there yet. On his comeback with his club soccer team, in some really big showcase tournaments, he just wasn’t the same.”

Cody finally returned to competitive soccer at a college showcase tournament in Las Vegas in March.

“It was a struggle for him,” Bert said. “It wasn’t back there immediately and they had to go back in (with another procedure) and re-work through it. He was favoring one side of his body versus the other, and his body was trying to compensate for that. He’d wind up getting hamstring pulls on his left side. Now that we know more about it, when you lose all that muscle strength — and he was in a full leg cast — it was a night-and-day difference.”

Until ...

“May was the last time he had a pull and was able to play a game really hard,” Bert said. “Halfway through the second game in club soccer, he started to have some issues. We haven’t had any issues yet since then. He tried kicking some footballs, but was off a good 5 to 10 feet. Within the last month ­— really before the high school season started — he’s back to 100 percent, maybe a hair more. As a junior, there’s no chance of a 50-yard field goal, and now he’s putting them through at practice quite regularly.”

Cody Bentley began playing soccer when he was 4 years old.

“It’s just what I was put in first and it was the first thing that really stuck with me,” Cody said. “I still remember playing parks and recreation ball in Hayden.”

He also tried the other typical sports like basketball and football, but they didn’t really stick.

“Early on, he struggled with ADHD, and we were looking to get him into sports,” Bert said. “It really didn’t matter what it was, and I think soccer is one of those sports that’s out there that kids can get involved with fairly early on. I played a little in high school, but enough to know that I loved the sport and had a nephew that really did well with it. The main thing was, in a small town, we didn’t have a ton of options when you’re little like he was.”

Timberlake started its soccer program two years ago, with Bert Bentley as coach and Cody as a sophomore.

Cody played club soccer in Priest River, as well as for the Lakeland Nighthawks, Idaho Thunder of Post Falls, The Academy, Coeur d’Alene Sting and now The Inferno.

“It’s tough in some situations, but good in others,” Cody said of playing for his dad. “There’s a lot of things we see eye-to-eye on and I guess that’s a father/son thing.”

Timberlake is 20-10-2 since starting its program in 2014. The Tigers are still seeking their first trip to the state tournament after falling in a state play-in match in the inaugural season.

“Maybe there’s just a tiny bit of pressure,” Cody said. “But I really don’t see myself as a super, super key part of that. I just try to be someone that others are striving to be better than me. I just try to help set the line and encourage them to do better than I do.”

When it comes to goal scoring for Timberlake, Bentley has been the benchmark thus far, scoring 88 career goals entering Wednesday’s match against visiting Priest River.

“I think he’s just a really good all-around, equally skilled player,” Bert said. “Whether it’s defense or offense, or his accuracy to the net, it’s just a real good mix of everything you’ve got to have. It’s a lot easier when we pull him back (from forward) to midfield. He can really direct a lot of different things with some simple communication. We’ve worked an awful lot this year on getting him more back and getting some more players some opportunities, and it’s been OK. If we were really pushing it, his goals would be off the chart. There were a few games that we tried to focus on having him up front, but then in the second half, getting him back and getting others involved.”

In a scheduling quirk this season, Timberlake played a rare doubleheader at Orofino, beating the Maniacs 8-0 before also beating Grangeville 3-0.

“I think it really showed the team how demanding the sport really is,” Cody said. “After that first game, you start sitting down and thinking we’ve got another game coming. When you lay down, relax and think about that, you just think, ‘wow, I’m tight.’ I knew I had to do something when I got out on the field.”

If that wasn’t enough for Bentley to deal with this fall, he also has been a part of the football team for a second year this fall.

“It’s just a third family on top of my soccer and regular family,” Cody said. “It’s just a bunch of other good friends I get to play with. I used to get a bunch of crap about being a soccer player. But once you (go out and hit) 55-yard field goals in practice, they say, ‘Ahh, we kind of like you on this team.’ When you can get eight touchbacks in a game, it kind of threw the coaches for a loop thinking that ... wow, this team has to go 80 yards on each drive because we’ve pushed them back. They love having me there.”

South Dakota State, Eastern Oregon, Portland, Seattle University and Whitworth have shown interest in him playing either soccer or football in college.

“I’d love to do both,” Cody said. “If it came to football and soccer, I don’t know what I’d choose. I’d push to try and do both.”

“The door is open for both certainly,” Bert said. “He’s got the ability to go either way. I know his heart is with soccer because he’s dedicated his life to it — as well as ours. He’s not against going the other way (and playing football) and he’s going to look for the best situation. He’s definitely looking, whereas we would have been looking at some good soccer programs before like Stanford and Oregon State. I think now that football is an option, and he’s looking at some smaller schools.”

Right now, Cody is just content to finish his senior year — which just started — and focus on his favorite subject, science.

“I’m a big science guy,” Cody said. “I loved physical science my freshman year. We had a great teacher here Mr. (Cameron) Knigge, and he just made things click for me. I stuck with science and did biology my sophomore year and had both chemistry and physics as a junior. I love science and criminal justice. I’ve had some family, grandparents, uncles that have gone into that, and I enjoy physiology a lot. Hopefully I’ll be able to blend those together somehow.”

Somehow, that doesn’t appear to be a problem for him.