THE FRONT ROW with Mark Nelke Nov. 3, 2013

North Idaho has boasted strong high school volleyball programs for decades.

That's still the case, though these days, that power has shifted a bit south ... to Lewiston High.

The Bengals won their first state volleyball title in school history last year, with a squad of no seniors. This year, with pretty much the same group, Lewiston romped to a second straight title, sweeping Idaho Falls in the championship match Saturday at Post Falls High.

After going to state just once in the first 32 years of the state volleyball tournament, Lewiston has now gone in five of the last six years.

HOW DID it happen?

"It happened because these kids were given an opportunity to play club when they were little, regardless of their talent," Lewiston coach Kelly Harwick said. "We had a club program that took everyone in and gave them the opportunity to play. They learned to love the game really young, so it's paying off."

Harwick said it's a combination of a talented group of athletes, a chance to play when they were young - in parks and rec ball, and later in club ball - as well as a dedication to staying together and getting better.

"It started with these seniors," Harwick said of this current group's success. "They've been playing the game for a long time, they love each other, and they love the game, so that's just kind of a neat mix."

Lewiston's rise to success coincided with the arrival of Harwick, in her sixth season. However, she credits her predecessor as Bengals coach, Judy Fong, "who I thank every day for what she's done for our program and our kids."

When Lewiston qualified for state in 2008, it marked the school's first trip to state since 1985 - and only the second trip in the history of the program.

Since then, the Bengals have made state appearances in 2008, '09, '10 and '12. Lewiston went two and out the first two years, and won one match in 2010. The state titles last year and this year marked the first trophies the Bengals have earned at state.

The first three teams included volleyball/basketball standout Savannah Blinn, who is now playing volleyball at Gonzaga, and Paige Schlader, now one of Harwick's assistant coaches.

"The thing I did when I took over was, I brought in a friend of mine who's a (physical) therapist, and he built a summer workout program for us," Harwick said. "We have finally got the kids to buy into, they need to be stronger, faster. So the expectation is that these kids are at summer workouts, three days a week. It's a great big picture thing - it's a lot of people that have put extra time in to try to get us better."

Sandpoint and St. Maries were the first communities to dive into the club volleyball concept in North Idaho, back in the 1980s. Clubs in the Coeur d'Alene area followed later. Lewiston has the Snake River Juniors, and Harwick said "It just took a while for our valley to catch up, and we have a great group of kids right now, and we know that sometimes you get a great group of gifted athletes - that's not a guarantee you're going to have one every year."

MOST OF this year's key players are juniors, which means Lewiston has a good chance to three-peat next year. And who knows how long into the future this run will go, but as Lake City coach Bret Taylor said, success breeds success.

"They've got a group of kids together at a young age and they work hard together, and they believe in each other and they've stuck together," Taylor said. "They have a good coach, and ... everything cycles in high school, it seems like. It seems like they're in a good cycle."

Taylor, a longtime coach in high school, college and club over the years, said playing a lot of offseason ball has helped Lewiston, "but they stuck together, that's the key to it," he said. "A lot of times these kids get into clubs and they go different directions (play for different clubs)."

Several of the Lewiston volleyball players are also members of the girls basketball team - something that doesn't always happen at larger schools anymore.

"The basketball coach (Pat Teichmer) and I get along great, and we want to make sure that we're giving kids the right information," Harwick said. "We don't want them to choose between sports; we don't think that that's the right thing. If you listen to big-time college coaches, they don't want kids to pick either. They want kids that are multi-sport athletes than can do more than one thing. So we try really hard to make sure the kids don't have to pick."

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached by phone at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at CdAPressSports.