THE FRONT ROW WITH MARK NELKE: Thursday, September 10, 2015

What a difference a year makes.

With 14 freshmen on the roster this season, the North Idaho College men's soccer team is learning the difference between playing in the Inland Empire League, which several of them did last year, to playing at the two-year college level, in the Northwest Athletic Conference.

"We've got a lot of freshmen used to dominating the game with skill and finesse, and they're learning they have to learn to tackle hard, because other guys are bigger and they are going to win the tackle," NIC men's coach Ken Thompson said.

The Cardinals had just finished a two-game road trip to western Washington to face a couple of NWAC foes in nonconference play. NIC lost 3-1 to Peninsula of Port Angeles on Saturday, then fell 3-0 the next day to Highline of Des Moines, Wash., in a game played in nearby Federal Way.

Highline defeated NIC last year in the championship game of the NWAC tournament.

"Peninsula is good, but Highline is a national-caliber two-year program," Thompson said. "You go from playing high school and club soccer in Idaho, to playing a bunch of kids who have grown up in the Sounders Youth Academy."

The losses dropped NIC to 2-2, heading into Saturday's conference opener at home vs. Treasure Valley Community College of Ontario, Ore.

But Thompson purposely set out to schedule the toughest nonconference games he could this season. Last season, though NIC did play for the conference title, Thompson said a weaker nonconference schedule didn't prepare the Cardinals for NWAC play.

"We put together the toughest week we could," Thompson said. "We're expecting Peninsula and Highline to be the toughest teams we play. Obviously we had a great year, but we wanted to know what we're up against (once conference play began). "This will give our guys a much better idea."

So what did the Cardinals learn from last weekend's games?

"If the freshmen want to continue as sophomores, they need to get into the weight room," Thompson said.

Thompson noted that three standouts from last year's team are already making an impact at the next level. At Western Washington, Adam Talley scored his first goal of the season on Saturday, and former Cardinal and Post Falls Trojan Brady Ulen is also playing at Western. And Alec Johnson has gotten some time on the field each of the last two games for Gonzaga.

"And those are the caliber of players we're trying to replace," Thompson said. "The skill and the quickness is there up top (in this year's NIC players), but we have to adapt to the college game. We have to run faster, but have to think faster, too."

ELSEWHERE IN this section, 12 wise men (or something like that) take their stab at picking NFL games. The first week's selections can be found on page B2.

But the cool part is, each picker is representing a local nonprofit, so if the picker wins, so does the charity. Me being a (wiener) dog lover, I picked Kootenai Humane Society.

The city of Coeur d'Alene's two high school football coaches, Van Troxel (Lake City) and Shawn Amos (Coeur d'Alene) are playing for the Jeff Hinz Cancer Fund, with good reason. Their friend and fellow coach, Post Falls High football coach Jeff Hinz, was diagnosed with a form of cancer nearly two years ago.

But, nearly two years later, Jeff is still fighting cancer.

A Facebook page, "Tackle Cancer with Coach Hinz," has been set up to kept people updated on his battle - which, of course, is much more important than any of the games we are picking.

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.