THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Reasons for both city rivals to be proud

It is one of the cruel realities of the way Idaho high school basketball state tournaments are set up.

Coeur d’Alene’s boys, the No. 2 seed in 5A, beats No. 7 and city rival Lake City 60-49 in a first-round game last Thursday.

Lake City bounces back in the losers bracket with impressive wins over Eagle (70-65) and Capital of Boise (66-59), and brings home a trophy for winning the consolation championship.

Coeur d’Alene, meanwhile, is jolted — not once, but twice — by Timberline of Boise in an overtime loss in the semifinals. Then, having to turn around and play just hours later, the Vikings have a hard time bouncing back in the third-place game, and fall to Madison of Rexburg — in a game where the winner gets a trophy and the loser gets nothing.

NOTHING AGAINST Lake City, of course, which is one of the best stories of the winter high school sports season.

Coeur d’Alene’s boys, of course, aren’t the only team to go from nearly playing for a state title to going home trophy-less.

I remember Post Falls having the same thing happen to it a time or two a few years back, when the Trojans were contending for state titles.

Coeur d’Alene had a season for the ages — first league title since sharing one in 2016, first outright league title since 2014, first regional title since 2011, first trip to state since 2012, first win at state since ’11, when the Vikings placed third.

Coeur d’Alene will lose four seniors (Logan Orchard, Gunner Larson, Max Entzi and Trey Nipp) who were key to the building of the program the past four years. But the Vikings will bring back their top two scorers (junior Carter Rupp and sophomore Caden Symons) next season. And fourth-year coach Jon Adams, a 1991 Coeur d’Alene High grad, has built a PROGRAM, where many of the players are basketball-first kids — some basketball-only.

If Coeur d’Alene isn’t the favorite next year in the new 6A Inland Empire League, it could be Lake City.

Many on the outside thought the Timberwolves might fall off the map after the departure of the bulk of last year’s undefeated state championship powerhouse.

But two of the returnees (juniors Reese Strawn and Cason Miller) helped guide Lake City back to state, and a third (sophomore Josh Watson, whose freshman season ended prematurely due to a leg injury) bounced back with an all-league campaign. And the Timberwolves graduate just one senior.

Post Falls will have something to say about that next year in the 6A IEL, if the Trojans can replace two key seniors (Neil McCarthy and Alex Shields) from a team which contended for a state berth this year.

The good news — even though the 6A (formerly 5A) IEL shrinks from four to three teams with Lewiston dropping to 5A, the 6A IEL will still get 1.5 berths to state next year in basketball.

THE IMMEDIATE news was that the St. Maries boys, in 2A, went 0-2 at state and ended a string of nine straight first-round victories at state.

But really, the story was that the Lumberjacks have gone to state 10 straight years (all under 10th-year head coach Bryan Chase), and brought home seven trophies, including a state championship in 2021.

And, going back a little farther, St. Maries has now gone to state 14 times in the last 16 years, stretching back to the ’Jacks’ days in 3A, when Jeff Mercer and Craig Wicks each took St. Maries to state twice.

This was the ninth year under Chase that St. Maries won or shared the Central Idaho League title, and might have been the most unlikely title for the Lumberjacks.

St. Maries returned just two seniors from last year’s third-place team at state, and this year’s squad boasted seven sophomores, including three starters, on the 14-man roster.

So the Lumberjacks aren’t going anywhere, much to the chagrin of the rest of the CIL.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @CdAPressSports.