The Front Row with JASON ELLIOTT April 27, 2013
The championship buzz in the area started in February with the Post Falls High girls basketball team winning a state 5A championship, followed up by the North Idaho College wrestling team winning its 13th NJCAA championship the next week.
A little under two months later, the cycle is starting again.
WHEN NORTH IDAHO College wrestling coach Pat Whitcomb decided to redshirt Kelvin Gastelum during the 2009-10 season, he expected him to compete at NIC again.
He did - although it was in a limited time for NIC - but in a year of championships for the Cardinal program, Gastelum is on his way in the sport of mixed martial arts.
Gastelum, 21, competed on the "Ultimate Fighter: Team (Jon) Jones vs. Team (Chael) Sonnen," winning the championship on April 13 in Las Vegas with a split decision against Uriah Hall - earning him a six-figure contract with the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Gastelum wrestled at 184 pounds at NIC and will drop to 170 when he competes again in the UFC.
"He came here for a year, then started training in mixed martial arts," Whitcomb said. "That year, he was Celic Bell's backup and he decided to stay down at home (in Yuma, Ariz.). He started to win enough to get on the show. Every week, they kept winning and wound up winning the whole thing."
Gastelum joins Trevor Prangley, who previously fought in the UFC and is now with the King of the Cage promotion, and Jamelle Jones as former NIC wrestlers who have jumped into the sport.
"Trevor's kind of the one that started that whole thing," Whitcomb said. "There's a lot of wrestlers that have gotten into it. To have Kelvin go into it - it kind of surprised me, but I could definitely see it with his background in wrestling. Now, he gets a contract with them. It's a good deal for him. He's a good kid."
“When we heard that he had made it, we were pretty proud of him for just making it,” Whitcomb said. “The guys they kept matching him up with, they thought he was going to lose every match, but he kept proving them wrong.”
UNLESS SOMETHING happens, there’s a good chance that one, if not both of the last two state 5A softball champions will again meet at Ramsey Park on May 18 to determine this year’s champion.
Lake City (2011) and Coeur d’Alene (2012) have kept the last two championships at home — with the Vikings beating the Timberwolves in Chubbuck in the title game of last year’s tournament, which was single-elimination.
Lake City enters the weekend with a 17-0 record, while Coeur d’Alene (13-5) faces a tough test with visiting Lewiston coming to town today.
“I’ve been doing this long enough to know that if you’ve got that one team you need to go through for a state championship, then you’ve got to try everything in your bag of tricks to get it,” Coeur d’Alene coach Larry Bieber said. “Last year, we were exactly in the same place, and then we got to the championship game — but now, we’re going to have to beat them twice.”
It remains to be seen if the Vikings have got enough tricks to do it again — but at least each team should expect a lot larger cheering section just a few minutes from their school to find out if they can.
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.