THE FRONT ROW WITH JASON ELLIOTT, October 23, 2013

By the time this weekend ends, it might not be much of a surprise if there's another rematch for a state high school soccer championship between a pair of Kootenai County teams.

Whether that match comes in the boys or girls tournament remains to be seen.

WHEN THE tournament gets started on Thursday morning in the Boise area, in the wee hours of the morning at 8 a.m. PDT, the Lake City girls and Post Falls boys will set out to defend state 5A championships.

Among the teams attempting to prevent that from happening will be the Post Falls girls and Lake City boys, who also qualified as runners-up at regionals last Saturday.

The funny thing about that was, did each of those teams really play the best they could have in that match, knowing that a bigger goal was still within reach?

At least one team held some injured starters out of the lineup, sacrificing an easier matchup to open the state tournament to have a squad at full strength for the final three games.

In the girls tournament, Lake City opens with Boise and Post Falls face Rocky Mountain High on its campus in Meridian.

Lake City will also open with Boise in the boys tournament, with the defending champion Trojans facing Timberline, also at Rocky Mountain.

Post Falls hadn't beat the Lake City boys in two meetings during the regular season, but did it during last Saturday's Region 1 title game at Lake City High.

With Lake City's win over the Post Falls girls on Saturday in their regional title match, they're 1-1-1 against each other in the three matchups.

NOT TAKING anything away from the Post Falls boys' and Lake City girls' championships, but the difference between playing the first-place team and the third from Boise is almost the same.

When it comes to league play, teams from the northern part of the state have to travel a little bit to get games, where Boise schools can remain in the Treasure Valley to get those games.

In case you forgot, the Lake City girls had to win in a shootout in Middleton, about a half-hour outside of Boise, to advance to state last year.

The rest is history.

Who knows, maybe some of those overtime games that happened here in last year's tournament don't this time around.

Stranger things have happened in the Boise area, but like one coach likes to say, "we want to be playing our best soccer at the right time."

Judging by the way things played out last week, it could be coming this week.

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 [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at JEPressSports.