The Front Row with JASON ELLIOTT Oct. 6, 2012

The agony of defeat is a hard thing to deal with in sports.

Over the next three weeks, a team in baseball, soccer, volleyball or football will end their season without winning that final game and hoisting that coveted gold trophy.

WHEN THE season came to a close on Wednesday for the Lake City boys team, so did appearances in the last two state soccer tournaments in the Boise area.

Lake City had to play three league games in a matter of six days (last Wednesday, Saturday, Monday) - two on the road, and the final game a makeup of a postponed match earlier this year.

The Timberwolves won twice (at Coeur d'Alene and Lewiston) and tied Post Falls, but came up short in a semifinal game at Coeur d'Alene on Wednesday.

Same thing for the Coeur d'Alene girls, who lost a 1-0 match at Lake City on Thursday.

Unlike the Lake City boys team, which was comprised of 10 seniors, the Viking girls team had six seniors - including one that didn't play due to injury - and will return a handful of starters next year.

"We're a fairly young, but balanced team," Coeur d'Alene coach Tarragh Carr said. "We wanted really badly to send our seniors away with a win. They've been tremendous role models and amazing teammates to these girls. We got better with each game, but unfortunately on any given day, someone can be beat - and today was it."

After regional championship matches next Monday and Tuesday, there's no guarantee that whoever loses matches will get a chance to play in the state tournaments at Coeur d'Alene, Post Falls or Lake City high school, as they'll have to travel to Middleton High next Saturday for play-in matches.

Three really good teams in this area in both boys and girls soccer - but only one could still be playing after next weekend.

WHILE THEY haven’t played a game in October that has meant anything in 11 years, the Seattle Mariners are taking steps to get themselves back into the playoff chase.

Or so it might look like.

The team announced Tuesday that they are reconfiguring the outfield fences at Safeco Field, with the biggest change coming in the left-center field alley, where the fence will move in 17 feet to 378.

The fence in dead center field will move from 405 feet to 401.

Gone will be the hand-operated scoreboard in the left field corner as well.

But in all the 81 games that were played at Safeco this season, it never appeared that the opposing team had any issues hitting the ball out of the park.

Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera won the triple crown (league leader in hitting, home runs and RBIs) in the American League by hitting .330 with 44 homers and 139 RBIs — the first player to accomplish the feat since Boston’s Carl Yastrzemski in 1967.

By comparison, Jesus Montero led the Mariners with a .260 batting average and Kyle Seager led with 20 homers and 86 RBIs. Montero was second in RBIs with 62 — giving the top two Mariner run producers a total of 148 RBIs, just nine more than Cabrera.

Who knows? Maybe by moving in the fences, some of those numbers will increase and they can start playing a few more games in October.

The agony of watching a team continue to come up short is tough.

But at least someone is coming up with more creative ways to solve it.

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d’Alene Press. He can be reached by telephone at 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at jelliott@cdapress.com.