THE FRONT ROW with JASON ELLIOTT: A lot of talent in these kids

Credit where credit is due.

Sometimes, you’ve just got to trust what you see and not others expectations.

ON THURSDAY at the state 5A baseball tournament, Lake City coach Mike Criswell described the first day as a day of upsets, with top-seeded Eagle knocked off by Mountain View of Meridian in an opening round game 5-3 at the College of Idaho in Caldwell.

OK, there’s one.

Middleton, which lost to Eagle in the District 3 best-of-3 championship series after winning the first game, got the last laugh on Friday, eliminating the Mustangs with a 3-2 win at Wolfe Field in Caldwell on the campus of College of Idaho.

Later Thursday, Coeur d’Alene and Lake City did exactly what they normally do, play a close game with defensive gems left and right before the Timberwolves used a four-run fifth inning to go on to beat the Vikings 6-2 in the opening round.

At state, sometimes a team turns to its ace, hoping that it can piece together something special should it win that first day.

Lake City, which had both New Mexico State signee Cooper Reese and fellow senior Nate Weatherhead ready to go, opted to go with Weatherhead.

“Coeur d’Alene had seen Reese three times this season already, so we’d been thinking about who to start,” Criswell said. “Nate pitched against them earlier this season, but it wasn’t that many innings. It was kind of a crafty move, but both looked good in the bullpen.”

And with pitch counts now playing a factor in who throws when, Weatherhead is done for the tournament after throwing 103 pitches in 6.1 innings on Thursday. 110 is the pitch-count limit for a day; if you throw 86 or more pitches in a day, three days' rest is required.

“You could throw your best guy and lose him for the weekend after the first day,” Criswell said. “Both of them looked really good this week and Nate really looked like he could be a No. 1.”

Criswell said Weatherhead added a slider within the last week.

“I thought it was a decent move,” Criswell said. “Nate had been putting in the work and developed a slider. He really pitched well and deserved to finish that game. We just couldn’t make the plays to get out of the inning.”

To Coeur d’Alene’s credit, the Vikings didn’t quit and had chances to get the momentum. As happens sometimes, the Vikings' season ended on Friday following a loss to Highland High of Pocatello in a loser-out game.

The Vikings will lose six seniors, but with the classification numbers changing next year, it might be foolish to think they can’t be right back where they were next spring.

THERE IS a good chance more than a few people might have been upset that three of the four matchups in the 5A tournament involved teams from the same conference this season.

Could it make for a better atmosphere to have that Coeur d’Alene-Lake City game played somewhere in Kootenai County? 

Definitely.

Hopefully as the Idaho High School Activities Association begins to sanction the state tournament in the next few years, fans from the northern part of the state get that opportunity to see these games up close and personal.

Not just those involving our teams, but those from around the state as well.

When the Coeur d’Alene Lumbermen hosted the class AA state American Legion baseball tournament last summer, those were some competitive games.

Coeur d’Alene — which features players from Coeur d’Alene, Lake City, Post Falls and Timberlake high schools — finished second in the tournament last year, losing to Pocatello in the championship game.

The Lums' single-A team advanced to regionals by winning their state tournament in Nampa.

The future is bright with some of those players as key contributors on both the Lake City and Coeur d’Alene teams that you’ve been watching all this spring.

Someday soon, someone is going to bring a title back to the area.

And we’ve got the guys to do it.

Trust me, I’ve seen it.

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for The Press. He can be reached by telephone at 208-664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on ‘X’, formerly Twitter @JECdAPress.