THE FRONT ROW WITH MARK NELKE: Thursday, February 26, 2015
In recent years, the Post Falls Trojans have done about everything they could to win a state 5A wrestling championship.
Pete Reardon, in his sixth season as Post Falls coach, has taken a program that was already a strong one under longtime coach Dennis Amende, and made it stronger. State champions came through the program and graduated, only to be followed by more state champs.
Despite taking a solid core of wrestlers to state in recent years, the Trojans have usually fallen victim to a numbers game. In recent years, Centennial has taken way more kids to state - in District 3, the top eight (top eight!) placers advance to state. In Region 1, where Post Falls resides, usually only the top three advance.
So while the Trojans may have had more finalists, Centennial won with more kids piling up more points through the consolation rounds.
Post Falls finished third at state last year, after back-to-back second-place finishes.
This year might be different.
Post Falls is loaded again, but is taking more wrestlers to state than in recent years - 19. The Trojans still figure to be a presence in the championship round on Saturday at Holt Arena in Pocatello, but those extra guys give them the chance to pick up additional team points throughout the two-day tourney.
Post Falls has dominated the competition this season, winning nearly every tournament it has entered - including the Tri-State tournament in December at North Idaho College, regarded for a long time as tougher than most state tournaments.
That leaves only one more tourney for the Trojans to dominate this season.
IT COULD turn out to be a nice two-week stretch for Post Falls High.
The following week, the Trojans boys basketball team has a good chance to win its second state title in the past six seasons.
Post Falls is 22-1, winners of 13 games in a row, coming off a near-flawless performance in winning the 5A Region 1 title.
And, most importantly, the media has voted the Trojans No. 1 in their final statewide poll, so that must mean something.
( ... pause for effect ... )
We're kidding, of course.
Whatever, we'll have more on the Trojans next week, but this year's squad is so much different than the last two Trojan teams to play in title games.
The 2010 state champions had four future college players, and breezed to the title. Two years later, one of those future college players was still around, complemented by a trio of really good players, as Post Falls placed second.
This team comes at you in waves - you don't know who's going to hurt you on a particular night, which will make it interesting to watch when the state tourney unfolds March 5-7 at the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa.
MOVING ON to past Post Falls basketball players, two of them will hook up Saturday afternoon in Moscow, when Idaho plays host to Montana State on senior day for the Vandals.
Senior Connor Hill, who was a junior on Post Falls High's 2010 title team, will be playing his final home game for the Vandals (11-14, 6-8 Big Sky), where he is the school's all-time leader in 3-pointers. He's averaging 16 points a game and has 88 3-pointers this season, and with four regular season games remaining, is within range of the school record of 99.
Junior Marcus Colbert, a sophomore on that 2010 Trojan title team and a senior on the 2012 state runner-up, is a starting point guard for Montana State. Colbert is averaging 11.9 points and 4.9 assists for the Bobcats (7-20, 4-11), including a buzzer-beater in a win recently at North Dakota.
But first for Montana State and Colbert, the Bobcats play at Eastern Washington tonight.
Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter@CdAPressSports.