Could you imagine if next year, if rain caused delays at the Idaho state track and field meets, all events were shortened by nearly 30 percent in order to get the meets done on time?

The 100-meter dash would be reduced to 71.4 meters.

The 200 would be just under 143 meters.

The 3,200? Call it the 2,286-meter run.

In field events, instead of six jumps or throws, you only get four.

There was a lot of grumbling — a LOT of grumbling — at the state 5A, 4A and 3A softball tournaments held last Friday and Saturday in Post Falls and Coeur d’Alene.

Seven-inning games shortened to five due to time constraints. The elimination of the losers bracket, meaning one loss and you were done, instead of having a chance to fight your way back.

(That said, the work done on the fields by volunteers last weekend by volunteers to get them even CLOSE to playable was absolutely amazing ... impressive ... incredible — insert your own adjective if you wish. Giant probs to all those folks. I attended my first infield burning on Saturday at Post Falls High, and judging from the number of folks who gravitated over to the North field with their cell phones to record the giant machinery circling the infield repeatedly, huge flames in its wake in a successful attempt to help dry out the dirt much faster, it was likely a first for them as well.)

The problem is, if there’s a better solution to how to deal with double-elimination tournaments affected by rain, no one has come forward with it — at least publicly.

IN RECENT years (2016 and ’17), the 5A softball tournaments extended into Sunday due to rain. But not all teams can play on Sundays, for religious reasons.

At least in 2017, they still played a full tournament — it just took an extra day.

The year before, the losers bracket was canceled partway through.

Last year’s state tournaments in eastern Idaho were affected by rain —some games Friday were suspended and resumed Saturday. In 2A, Friday’s games were played in Pocatello, but Saturday’s were moved to Minico for weather reasons.

North Idaho gets to host events like state volleyball, and a portion of state softball, every other year as somewhat of a tradeoff for never being able to host big-ticket items like state basketball and state wrestling.

The problem is, it tends to rain a lot in North Idaho during this part of May. Press climatologist Cliff Harris — the equivalent of a sports information director for weather — said we received 1.98 inches of rain during the period stretching from last Wednesday through Saturday. That included a dumping of .91 inches on Friday, when all the 3A and 4A games were washed out, and only two games and part of a third were played in 5A.

“It just happens that May is the wettest month of the spring,” Harris said. “The middle of May is normally the wettest time, and guess what — this (tournament) is in the middle of May.”

I’m sure the folks in the Boise area would love to take over hosting state softball.

But it does rain in the Boise area sometimes too. State track and field, and state baseball in that area have not escaped the wrath of raindrops in recent years.

IF RAIN continues to be an issue the next time state softball returns to North Idaho, in two years, what other options are there to get the tournaments completed as they were scheduled?

Keep teams over the weekend, and resume the tourney(s) on Monday? An extra two nights of lodging might be tough for some athletic departments to afford.

Move the tourneys back a week, to Memorial Day weekend? They moved them up to this past weekend so folks didn’t have to give up most of their holiday weekend.

Move them back two weeks, to the weekend after Memorial Day? Then you start running into graduations. Plus, if folks didn’t want to play state on a holiday weekend, they certainly wouldn’t want to play state-qualifying games.

Move them up a week? Harris said the first two weeks of May this year were the driest since 1895. But the spring sports season is short enough already.

NORTH IDAHO is tentatively scheduled to host state 5A and 4A softball in 2021, and 5A, 4A and 3A softball in 2023.

The Boise area is scheduled to host all five state softball tourneys in 2020. In 2022, the 4As are tentatively scheduled for Twin Falls, with 5A, 3A and 2A in eastern Idaho.

So Boise’s on the clock, with the challenge of pulling off a rain-free tournament next year.

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