THE FRONT ROW WITH JASON ELLIOTT: Saturday, November 28, 2015
Holidays are a time when some teams take a break from games to sit back and relax.
Others are going out to find games — anytime and anywhere — to fine tune things for a run toward the playoffs.
A HANDFUL of high school teams will compete in holiday tournaments next month, with the Coeur d’Alene girls basketball team and the Lake City boys hosting tournaments in the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day.
For the Timberlake boys basketball team, they’ll just be content to take some time off from games, and get back into things following the holiday break.
“We decided a few years ago not to do that,” said Timberlake boys basketball coach Tony Hanna, whose school used to hold a two-day tournament in Spirit Lake. “It’s a really long season, and I like to give our guys a break. We’ll start (Intermountain) League play after the break, and it’s really important to come back fresh for that. We just decided to do it a little different than everyone else.”
The team will continue to practice during that time, but no games are currently scheduled.
“It’s a little different, and I’m still not sure if that’s the right way to go,” Hanna said. “We don’t want to take too much time off because we spend time getting them in playing shape and don’t want to lose that momentum. But we struggled a little bit before the break last year and coming in fresh for the second half last year really did us some good.”
Meanwhile, for Timberlake wrestling coach Kelly Amos, who is beginning the second year of a second stint as coach, the more recent holiday break for Thanksgiving might have came at the wrong time.
Due to power outages from the windstorm on Nov. 17, some wrestlers didn’t show up for practice for the first time until Monday, but they had a really good reason.
“There was a few of our guys that didn’t have power until last weekend,” Amos said. “Monday was the first practice where we had anything close to a team. Once we got back, we started in on Thanksgiving break and didn’t practice. It kind of took a toll on us.”
THIS YEAR, the Post Falls boys basketball team won’t be playing six games in six days in various tournaments, nor will the state 5A girls champion Mountain View High of Meridian won’t be returning to play in the Coeur d’Alene High girls’ holiday tournament.
Granted, the Trojans will play at the Curtis High Invitational in Tacoma, Wash., Dec. 17-19.
Mountain View is playing in a tournament of champions in Phoenix Dec. 18-22. Post Falls — after years of running through the competition at the NIC Coeur d’Alene Inn-vitational — will play at the Lake City Invitational, with three games in three days against predetermined teams.
Both teams used those tournaments as starting points to state championships in the top classification last year.
Will lightning strike again? We’ll have to wait and see.
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.