THE FRONT ROW WITH MARK NELKE: Thursday, Sept. 15, 2016

The transition is basically over.

No more going, “Oh yeah, this NIC team is in this league, but this other NIC team is in another league. Or is THIS team in THAT league?”

With the exception of the Cardinal wrestling program, which remains in the NJCAA, all the other NIC athletic programs are now in the more regionally based Northwest Athletic Conference, a 38-member conference where most of the schools reside in Washington and Oregon.

The Cardinal volleyball, men’s basketball and women’s basketball programs are in their first season in the NWAC. The NIC soccer, softball and golf programs made the transition from NJCAA to NWAC two seasons ago.

“We’ve been whupping up on them (NWAC schools) for years,” NIC athletic director Al Williams said the other day, at the annual NIC Athletics Showcase at The Coeur d’Alene Resort. “Now that we’re at the same scholarship level, they’re looking for payback.”

• NIC’s men’s soccer team got off to a slow (0-2-2) start before breaking into the win column last Saturday at Columbia Basin.

“Garrett Boyce has been huge for us in goal this year,” Cardinal assistant coach James Williamson said. “He’s No. 2 in the NWAC in saves, which is a great stat for him, but for our team, it doesn’t say much for our defensive organization.”

But Williamson said the Cardinals are getting a little better every day, and “if we can connect the pieces — the defense to the midfield to the front of the pitch — we’re going to be dangerous.”

The NIC men’s and women’s teams were traveling to Ontario, Ore., on Tuesday for matches Wednesday vs. Treasure Valley, so neither head coach was available at Tuesday’s luncheon.

• The NIC women’s golf team won the NWAC championship last spring, and led by returnees Amalia Negrette and Erica Frazier, “we feel confident we can repeat,” Cardinal assistant coach J.J. Barker said.

The NIC men have three returnees. One of the newcomers, Ross Gilbert of Bozeman, Mont., recently hit a 420-yard drive in a long-drive contest, Barker said.

To which NIC athletic director Al Williams quipped, “anybody who can hit it 420 yards in less than three shots is amazing.”

• Kelsey Stanley is in her third season as NIC volleyball coach — which seems like a long tenure, given the recent revolving door of Cardinal volleyball coaches.

This is the volleyball program’s first year in the NWAC, but the Cards still wanted to play the best they could find in the preseason.

“I don’t know what I was thinking last summer, scheduling us to play two tournaments against the best NJCAA teams in the nation,” she said.

The first one was in Salt Lake City, and the second last weekend at the College of Southern Idaho.

“You could tell they still wanted to play us, because they stuck us with the same teams we played in the SWAC,” Stanley said.

NIC opened at an NWAC crossover tournament, winning three matches and losing three.

“We thought we were going to walk in there and dominate, and it was an eye opener,” Stanley said.

• NIC’s softball team will be looking to defend its NWAC East Region title this spring, with six returning players.

Among them are catcher Nikki Miller (12 homers, 49 RBIs in 2016), all-NWAC infielder Emily Aspden (who is also playing soccer this fall), outfielders Ana Raynor (Coeur d’Alene High) and Jamie Yurick (Lake City), as well as Brittany Gay (11 homers, 30 RBIs) of Lake City, who is also a standout on the volleyball team this fall.

Coach Don Don Williams, who started the NIC softball program in 1998, said the Cardinals will have three new pitchers, though one of them, Kelly Kearney from Sooke, British Columbia, pitched 166 innings and won 13 games last year at Seward County Community College in Liberal, Kan.

• NIC’s women’s basketball team will return just two players from last season. One is Jocelyn Cook-Cox, who is “a Division I athlete,” Carlson said. She is playing for the women’s soccer team this fall.

Among the local recruits are Shayna Allert of Post Falls High, who played last year at Walla Walla Community College. She joins two from Lake City who led the Timberwolves to a fourth-place finish at state last year — Whitney Meier and Cierra Dvorak.

Carlson said Meier is a “great shooter,” and Dvorak “was the one that really upped the pace” for the T-Wolves.

“A lot of D-II schools wanted her,” Carlson said of Dvorak, “but she and Whitney are best friends.”

Carlson previously coached at Big Bend Community College in Moses Lake. Big Bend will be one of NIC’s foes in conference.

“I spent eight years in that East Region,” Carlson recalled. “There are two coaches still in that region from when I was at Big Bend (Bruce Johnson at Community Colleges of Spokane and Bobbi Hazeltine of Walla Walla), and I’m looking forward to coaching against them again.”

• Pat Whitcomb is in his 20th season as NIC wrestling coach.

He rattled off some impressive numbers for his program, which is beginning its 47th season — an overall record of 678-80-4. The Cardinals have won 14 national titles, 54 individual titles, finished in the top three at nationals 34 times, and produced 229 NJCAA All-Americans.

All are NJCAA records.

But he was just as proud of some other numbers — his wrestling program recently distributed its 15,000 book as part of the Shirley Parker Reading Program for area students. And they just completed their fourth year of handing out school supplies to students in need.

As for his wrestling team, in which the preseason goal is always to win a national title, the Cardinals will have plenty of all-this and all-that performers in the starting lineup, but “I think we’ll be as good as the person behind them pushing them,” Whitcomb said.

• NIC’s men’s basketball team enjoyed a season for the ages last year — a 30-0 regular season (the only undefeated men’s college basketball team at any level), and a trip to the NJCAA tournament for the first time since 1997.

Corey Symons, in his third season as NIC head coach, said a goal is to try to put that memory behind them and focus on this season.

That will be made easier in that only two players return from last year’s squad, including guard Sam Dowd, who, “for as good a basketball player as he is, he’s a better person,” Symons said.

NWAC rules say teams can only offer scholarships to players in the nine western states (and British Columbia). One player from outside the “western nine,” Charles Williams of Houston, “turned down 8-10 full rides from jucos to come here as a walk-on,” Symons said, based on the recommendations of a couple players he knew from last year’s squad.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter@CdAPressSports.