THE FRONT ROW WITH JASON ELLIOTT: Saturday, March 21, 2015

They are far from new faces to their teams, but with a little luck, they could find themselves in a new place a little later this spring.

A state tournament.

THERE WILL be some youth in the mix in the 5A ranks, especially golf teams in the Inland Empire League - Coeur d'Alene, Lake City, Post Falls and Lewiston - this spring.

Joseph Glenn, Drew Harris and Ty Brearley return for Post Falls, which finished seventh in the season-opening Clarkston Invitational on March 9 at the Clarkston Country Club.

Colton Serdahl and Tyler Ranney are also back for the Trojan boys squad.

"Colton is one of our most consistent players," second-year Post Falls coach Maria Kostina said. "He'll always keep us in the game. Joseph has grown a lot as a player and a person over the year. He's one of our guys that can shoot in the 60s and one of our leaders that everyone follows. Tyler has improved a lot, and can potentially shoot a good score for our team."

Kostina also mentioned Harris for his improvement over the offseason.

"He's probably one of the players that really has the most fun," Kostina said. "He knows how to play the game, and has improved with his focus and is learning to get the most out of his not-so-good days and continue to learn and be one of the examples."

Nic Riorden and Tanner Beyers are also in the mix for varsity time.

"Nic has definitely improved and been contributing tremendously," Kostina said. "We've got some younger kids that I know with a little more experience will contribute at some point this year."

Makayla Franks, Jainy Anderson, Victoria Evans and Maddi Anderton return for the Post Falls girls.

"Makayla is one of our more consistent players," Kostina said. "Victoria improved by 13 strokes and Jainy by 18 and just made a big leap. I'm truly impressed with this group.

A lot of these girls have learned golf in high school. It took them a while to get going, but they've done an incredible job so far.

"Victoria is definitely one of the leaders," Kostina said. "She's very good about doing her best - and the entire team really - no matter what the weather brings them."

WITH AN opening as the tennis coach at Lakeland High in Rathdrum, Cortney Muller, a tennis instructor at Peak Fitness in Hayden has taken over the Hawks program.

"I've been playing since I was five," Muller said. "I grew up and played all through junior high and high school and been teaching at the parks and recreation level for the last 12 years. We've got some great kids and a pretty solid team."

Lakeland notched a win over Coeur d'Alene Charter on Thursday at the Cherry Hill courts in Coeur d'Alene, beating the Panthers 10-9.

"We've got a fairly young team with mostly being freshmen and sophomores," Muller said. "It should be a really fun year."

IN PREVIOUS years, qualifying from the 5A and 4A IEL for postseason berths has been very crowded with teams often times carrying teams with plenty of varsity experience.

This year, that's not necessarily the case as the window seems to have opened a slight bit for some new faces to have a breakout season.

Who knows, next year that window may not get opened 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.