THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Time to do some spring cleaning of the ol’ notebook

A year ago, when former Lake City High star Blake Buchanan was deciding on his new school after transferring from Virginia, the Internet reported he was meeting with Iowa State coaches at a sports bar in Ames, Iowa. 

Of course, we wondered what the party might have been munching on while discussing the relative merits of how the 6-foot-10 center fit in with the Cyclones.

Naturally, the top two appetizers on the menu were wings — one named after the hometown Iowa State Cyclones, of the Big 12 Conference, the other after the rival Iowa Hawkeyes of the Big Ten. 

Cyclone Wings are described as “crispy bone-in wings tossed in one sauce, served with ranch, carrots, celery ... "

Hawkeye Wings are described as “hand-breaded boneless wings (i.e. spineless) ... "

The rivalry is real, in case you wondered. 

The teams meet once a year as part of the Cy-Hawk Series. 

“Our coach won’t even say Iowa,” Buchanan said recently. “He’ll just say 'that team.’ He won’t even mention their name.”  

FOR MANY years, the Coeur d’Alene High football team has sought the toughest nonleague games it could find, even if it meant the Vikings had to travel great distances. 

Last year was no different.  

Rigby, which beat Coeur d’Alene 38-7 in the opener, went on to win the Idaho 6A state title 

Silverton (Ore.), which won 21-14 at Coeur d’Alene the following week, captured the Oregon 5A state title 

Camas (Wash), which defeated the visiting Vikings 26-7 in early October, reached the first round of the Washington 4A state playoffs. 

Life Christian Academy of Tacoma, which fell 41-7 at Coeur d’Alene in the regular season finale, reached the quarterfinals in the Washington 1A state playoffs. 

Lewiston and Sandpoint reached the 5A state playoffs. 

Sunnyside, Post Falls and Lake City were the only teams on Coeur d’Alene’s schedule last year to not reach the playoffs. 

Two of Post Falls’ non-Idaho nonleague opponents made the playoffs. 

Glacier Peak, which won at Post Falls 30-18 on Sept. 26, and Moses Lake, which won on the road 42-7 two weeks later, both reached the quarterfinals of the Washington 4A playoffs. 

FOR SOME reason, I had never heard mention of 5-on-5 football until I heard it from Carey football coach John Saili, after his Panthers outlasted the Coeur du Christ Saints in the quarterfinals of the state 1A playoffs at the Marimn Health Coeur Center in Worley. 

But it’s the 8-man passing league equivalent of 7-on-7, played by 11-man teams in the offseason. 

“We knew it was going to be tough; we met up with these guys early on at a 5-on-5 tournament at Cambridge,” Saili said. “So we got to compete against these guys at the beginning of the season and got to meet coach (Kellen) Clemens and his staff. We could tell they’re well-coached kids.” 

Carey went on to win the state title.  

Coeur du Christ, in only its second year with a football program, had the ball and a chance to win late in the fourth quarter, but turned the ball over on downs and lost 40-36.  

And the Saints only had four seniors on last year’s squad. 

I HAD some leftover thoughts from Coeur d’Alene High boys basketball coach Kent Leiss from late February, after his Vikings were eliminated in the 6A District 1 tournament. 

Leiss resigned last week as Vikings coach, but his comments are still telling. 

He said Caden Symons, who played that last game against Post Falls on a strained MCL in his right knee, took himself out of the game with 3 minutes to go after playing all of the first 29. 

“He never takes himself out of the game. Ever,” Leiss said. “Just said, ‘my knee’s killing me,’ but he gave us 29 minutes on a strained MCL.” 

Because of injuries to other expected returners, Symons was Coeur d’Alene’s lone returning player with varsity experience.  

So to wring eight wins out of an inexperienced squad playing a tough nonleague schedule and in Idaho’s largest classification, Leiss said he’d let others judge how much progress his squad made. 

And despite that inexperience, the Vikings were a tough out, pushing Lake City, the eventual 6A state champion, and Post Falls, which nearly beat Lake City to advance to state. 

"We did not win a game, last summer, and we played in the Spokane fall league, and we did not win a game there, either,” Leiss said. “So I guess if you look at that, the fact we squeezed out 8 or 9 wins this year, we did make some progress. And we’ve got a lot of kids back. And they have a pretty good work ethic. Our freshman team was successful this year; I think they only lost three games. Our JV was like, 13-7, and we have a lot of kids on the varsity coming back. So we’re optimistic that if we have a good next eight months, that we’ll be a real competitive team next year.” 

Of course, we know what has happened since then. 

Back to Symons, who has signed with Evansville, and averaged 31.1 points a game. He was a bit behind at the start of basketball season, after missing the second half of football season with a broken collarbone. 

“I’m proud of what Caden did this year,” Leiss said. “When we played down in Idaho Falls, he scored nine points in the first game, but he’d only had three practices — he was so dang tired. But from that point forward, everybody knew it was coming, and nobody could stop him. Nobody. Nobody slowed him down. Not like, in my opinion, one time, and he’s facing the best defender, sometimes defenders, plural. Down in Las Vegas, literally a couple of teams would guard him with two or three guys. He helped us bridge the gap.”   

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 1205, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @CdAPressSports.