THE FRONT ROW WITH JASON ELLIOTT: Jan. 3, 2015
While the players haven't had school in a few weeks, that doesn't mean they've stopped learning over the holiday break.
For area high school basketball coaches, it might be the right mix of players in certain situations.
The players meanwhile, may have found that little extra bit of confidence that can make all the difference in the postseason.
DURING THE 8-team Coeur d'Alene Winter Classic girls tournament, it was bound to happen that league rivals had the chance to play each other with the field consisting of: 5A Inland Empire League Lake City, Post Falls and Coeur d'Alene, 4A IEL Sandpoint, 2A Central Idaho League Lapwai and Grangeville and Rocky Mountain and Mountain View of the Southern Idaho Conference.
As it happened, Mountain View beat Rocky Mountain in the championship game, and Lake City beat Coeur d'Alene in the third-place game.
"I thought it worked out pretty good," Coeur d'Alene coach Dale Poffenroth said. "On that final day, the first game was really, really close (Sandpoint-Grangeville) and that championship game was close for the most part. Post Falls/Lapwai was a really close game and our game wasn't as one-sided affair as it could have been. I thought the matchups ended up being pretty good. The southern teams might have gone home saying we drove all that way to play each other, and you never know, there's been years where they could have came up here and not win a game."
And who knows, maybe these games aren't the first of another matchup down the road.
"It's good for Post Falls and Lake City to see those teams to get a gauge of what they need to work on," Poffenroth said. "It was good for us to play Lake City so that we've got a gauge of what we need to do against them the next time."
Even having that chance to see each other before league play didn't detour any of the teams either.
"When you do a tournament with two local teams, and ourselves, odds are really slim that we're going to play each other," Poffenroth said. "I asked them about it, and they said they didn't care and they want to come back next year. If they're happy with that, we'll keep doing it. Hopefully everyone is happy with the results they got here and want to do it again."
LAKE CITY and Post Falls finished the tournament 2-1 with wins on Wednesday.
"I think the biggest thing they learned this week is that they can compete against some of the other teams in the state," Lake City coach Bryan Kelly said. "In the third quarter (against Coeur d'Alene on Wednesday), we came out a little sluggish and couldn't get anything going. We need to play and put four good quarters together."
"We've been playing pretty much everybody all year long," Post Falls coach Marc Allert said. "We kind of got our subbing rotations down now and what to expect of some of them in certain situations. It's been a good tournament for us and good learning time for us going into league."
Starting Tuesday - they begin to show if they've learned those lessons on the basketball court again.
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.