THE FRONT ROW WITH JASON ELLIOTT: Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2016

Depending on which coach you might ask, the decision for Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy to move from the 2A Central Idaho League to the 3A Intermountain League might be met with a little less optimism.

But when it comes to both the cross country and track and field programs, Jim McPhilomy, in his second year of coaching both programs, has the belief his kids can compete, and will, starting right away.

THE BIGGEST difference in cross country won’t be noticeable until mid-October, when the Panthers compete at districts and state. In the past, they’ve just had to finish as the top team among themselves, Grangeville and Orofino at that respective regional meet. St. Maries does not have a cross country program.

Now, they’ll compete with Timberlake, Bonners Ferry, Priest River and Kellogg for at least two spots to state, with a third possible.

“I’m excited about the move,” McPhilomy said. “I believe the competition level will be better for our team as well, as well as the other teams in the district.”

The team’s schedule is the same as in years past. The Panthers open the season Sept. 3 at the Bonners Ferry Invitational.

“Each week we compete with schools from every classification — one of the great things about cross country — so individually, our athletes won’t see a big difference from what they have seen in the past each week,” McPhilomy said. “From a team standpoint, we’ll be competing with schools with more kids to draw from, so our teams’ ability to qualify for state competition will be more difficult.”

Coeur d’Alene Charter finished runner-up in last year’s state 2A meet at Farragut State Park in Athol, something that gave McPhilomy some confidence moving forward.

“The kids are still a little hesitant about it,” McPhilomy said of the move up. “Their first instinct was that they’re not going to place at state, or not make it. As last season went on, we started seeing more promise and just missed the state title by a point. Our guys are ready for that challenge again and I think they’ll be able to be competitive with the other 3A schools. How the boys ran at the 2A and 3A meet last year, the times were really close to each other. If you took the times, all of our kids that were medalists (top 20) would have medaled in 3A as well. I think it’s going to be a good thing.”

THANKS TO some soccer parents in St. Maries, both the boys and girls program has been able to take advantage of a few upgrades to the field at City Park.

“We had a grass roots group of parents that got together and were able to get the field widened out,” St. Maries boys soccer coach Chris Renaldo said. “It was 60 feet, but now it’s 74 across. They leveled it off and it’s really nice to see. The grass has struggled to come in because of the dry spring, but just to see it flat and so much wider, it’s great.”

In order to do the project, they removed the gravel walking track around the field.

“We peeled that back and it really helped a bunch,” Renaldo said. “We used to have some holes in the middle of the field and the officials were used to them. It’s just going to be so much better now.”

And the results have been better as well as both the Lumberjack boys and girls teams won in their opening matches on the new field.

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 @JEPressSports.