THE FRONT ROW WITH JASON ELLIOTT: Wednesday, December 9, 2015

You’ve got to hand it to the wrestling teams at both Post Falls and Coeur d’Alene high schools.

Long road trips to open the season, and competing is one thing.

Being successful, as each was over the weekend, is another.

THE SQUAD at Post Falls had to endure a 786-mile trip — one way — to compete in the Sidney (Mont.) Invitational.

“It was an awesome weekend for us,” Post Falls coach Pete Reardon said. “We won the duals tournament (on Friday) and the tournament (Saturday).”

Post Falls beat Lake Stevens (Wash.) in the championship match of the duals tournament, then beat them by 86 points for the team title in the bracket tournament.

“It was really an impressive start to the season,” Reardon said. “The kids really competed well for the first week and having to get on a bus to come compete.”

Lake Stevens is no cupcake school either. They’ve won eight state titles in Washington at the 4A classification (1,252 students and up). Its current coach, Brent Barnes, a former North Idaho College wrestler, led the Vikings to an 18-year unbeaten streak in WESCO league matches, and was featured on an MTV special.

Lake Stevens will likely be one of the teams to watch next weekend when the annual Tri-State Invitational is held at Christianson Gym on the campus of North Idaho College.

Meanwhile in Boise, the Coeur d’Alene wrestling team went 4-2 to finish 10th out of 32 teams in the Buck’s Bags duals tournament at Capital High.

“We got better as the tournament went on,” Coeur d’Alene coach Jeff Moffat said.

Whether it was injuries or guys out of the lineup, Coeur d’Alene relied on younger wrestlers to get them through the weekend.

“Those guys that filled in did a great job,” Moffat said. “It was a learning experience for them and should help them improve throughout the year.”

Then on Monday, Coeur d’Alene won nonleague duals against East Valley and Bonners Ferry to improve to 6-4 in duals this season.

Both feats are pretty impressive on their own.

Post Falls logging 1,500 miles for a pair of tournament wins, pretty impressive.

Coeur d’Alene already competing in 10 duals, winning six, not a bad start.

IT SHOULD have not been as much of a surprise that Washington State ended up in the Sun Bowl to its fans.

Losing in the Apple Cup ruined any real shot of playing in the Holiday Bowl, with that bid going to USC.

The Cougs’ opponent for that game was a little surprising, as they’ll take on Miami on Dec. 26 in El Paso, Texas.

If someone were to have told me that Washington State — after losing to Portland State to open the season — was going to get on a run and win six of its final eight games, I probably would have thought you were joking. The lone loss — outside of the one to Washington — came against Stanford, who beat the Cougars 30-28 on Oct. 31. Stanford is heading to the Rose Bowl to face Iowa.

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. Follow him on Twitter @JEPressSports.