The Front Row with JASON ELLIOTT Sept. 26, 2012

Absolute chaos.

After watching the first month of NFL football, as well as prep soccer, chaos might be the best way to describe it right now.

BELIEVE IT or not, some area prep soccer teams will be finished late next week.

As the regular season winds down this week - with the final 5A Inland Empire League matches this Saturday as Lake City and Coeur d'Alene face off - plenty still remains to be settled.

Coeur d'Alene, which is currently tied with Post Falls in the 5A IEL boys standings, needs to win and hope that the Timberwolves can upset the Trojans in Coeur d'Alene on Thursday afternoon.

Post Falls has already locked up the 5A IEL girls regular season title and will be the top seed when their regional tournament begins next week against Lewiston, with Lake City second and will likely host Coeur d'Alene in a loser-out match.

In the span of a month, area soccer teams have fit an entire schedule into just four weeks, playing up to four times a week, just to be sure that games are completed by this weekend - six weeks after the regular season began.

It didn't seem like that long ago that the high school sports season was starting and teams were getting back on the field for the first time after a long summer vacation.

And by the time that school had begun for most teams, they'd already played at least four to five games.

One coach added that between the level of each game, along with the compressed schedule to fit in a state play-in game - that it is difficult on the players to recover in time for the next match.

Another issue with the 5A regional runner-up having to travel to face a team from Boise at Middleton High in a play-in match on Oct. 13 - Boise is just under a half-hour from Middleton, with the northern teams needing to travel almost seven hours and the winner advancing to the state 5A tournaments at Coeur d'Alene, Lake City and Post Falls Oct. 18-20.

For a sport trying to get fans to come out to their tournaments, shouldn't soccer want as many local teams as they can get?

IN ALL the years I've watched Seattle Seahawks football, nothing compares to the way that game ended on Monday night.

And I don't think it will ever happen again.

Allegedly, Seahawks receiver Golden Tate wrestled the ball out of the hands of Green Bay defensive back M.D. Jennings on the final play to bring in the winning score.

Nowhere in that entire sequence outside of when the pile was cleared did it appear as if Tate caught the ball, but somehow he had it.

Unlike what some commentators are saying — that this will cost Green Bay a playoff spot — that’s insane.

Green Bay is still a great team, much like a bunch of other 1-2 teams. And this is only the third game, with another 13 to go.

Eventually, those locked-out officials will get back on the field and if this is just another step in that happening, then good for all those involved.

Until that happens, get used to this chaos.

It might be around a while.

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d’Alene Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at [email protected].