TOP STORIES OF 2016

This year’s top stories, in no particular order, are an ode to the many state team championship won by local schools this calendar year — as well and remembering a couple of longtime coaches, one who left us far, far too soon:

TIMBERLAKE GIRLS BASKETBALL

After watching someone else celebrate in four trips in the last five years to the state 3A championship game, it was the Tigers’ turn in February.

Piece by piece, 13 other players — as well as their coaches — got that chance, finally.

Finally.

Timberlake won its first state title by crushing March Valley 62-35 at the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa.

“I think the biggest part was our depth,” said Matt Miller, in his 11th season as Timberlake coach. “We play really hard, really fast, with a lot of bodies in both halves, regardless. In the second half, whether we shorten our bench or not, that first half matters. It plays a big factor and it plays a big factor in our success in the second half.”

The Tigers used a pressing five-in, five-out rotation all season in order to have their depth used as a strength.

Timberlake finished 23-1 with 23 straight wins, its lone loss coming at 5A Lewiston to open the season.

“They’re a great group,” Miller said. “They were just able to stay focused for an entire season, which isn’t easy to do. To finish how we finished was pretty special.”

After four runner-up finishes in the last five years, Timberlake broke through with its third straight double-digit win of the weekend.

“It’s kind of relief,” Miller said. “It feels good, but it doesn’t really change anything. The only difference is we’ve got one more win that we did last year. It’s more for the kids. They’ve put so much heart and soul into this. They’ve put so much work into this during the offseason, during practices and then just getting better is where it’s at.”

“For his sanity, it was really important,” junior Keelie Lawler said of the school’s first basketball title in school history. “It feels really good. It gives us some confidence now. Before, we’ve been like, it’s the championship game, so we’re going to lose. Nothing had to be said. We executed like we were supposed to do and got it done.”

LAKE CITY BASEBALL

Lake City’s pitching and defense dominated the 5A state high school baseball tournament. And the Timberwolves used more of the same in May to end their eight-year state championship drought with a 4-1 win over Meridian at Boise’s Memorial Stadium.

“It’s tremendous,” first-year Lake City coach Paul Manzardo said. “I’m so tickled to death for these seniors who have given their hearts and souls to Lake City High School for four years, and finally all of that hard work paid off for them.”

Lake City (19-8) won its second state title in school history, and first since 2007. Boise-area teams had won the title every year since them. Lake City also played for the state title in 2004 and ’08.

Sophomore Kodie Kolden followed Dominic Conigliaro and Cody Garza to deliver another gem on the mound for the Timberwolves. Conigliaro opened the tournament by holding Timberline, the Southern Idaho Conference’s top offense, to two runs, and Garza followed with a seven-hit shutout of Highland in the semifinals.

Kolden held Meridian (18-13) to one unearned run on seven hits.

Manzardo took over as coach this season for Travis Georgius, who resigned after three seasons in order to take classes toward a masters in education. Georgius teaches biology and astronomy at Lake City.

JEFF HINZ

Jeff Hinz will be remembered not only as a football coach and a man who bravely fought cancer for nearly three years, but also as someone who touched countless lives as a teacher, mentor and friend,

Hinz, head football coach at Post Falls High for the past 11 seasons, died in July at Hospice of North Idaho in Coeur d’Alene following a long battle with non-smoker’s lung cancer.

He was 45.

“He was a warrior,” Post Falls athletic director Craig Christensen said. “He battled. To make it as long as he did shows how much strength and determination he had. He was a great coach, a great family man, father. He was a great friend. He’s going to be missed greatly by many.”

Hinz taught social studies, and coached football at Post Falls High for 22 years.

Hinz was diagosed with cancer after he suffered a broken leg when his left leg gave out on Thanksgiving Day 2013. Doctors found a tumor in his leg, and in his lung.

Hinz coached when he could the past two years. In the 2015 season, he missed a couple of games; other times, he coached from the press box, or from a wheelchair on the sideline.

POST FALLS WRESTLING

The Trojans won the state 5A wrestling championship in February for the second straight yar. And it wasn’t even close.

Senior Alius De La Rosa beat James Fisher of Centennial 6-0 at 145 pounds to win his fourth state title, adding to his state titles at 98, 113 and 132 his first three years.

He’s the first four-time state champion in school history.

Freshman Ridge Lovett (98 pounds), Matt McLeod (120) and Tyler Wolf (138) also won titles for Post Falls, which repeated as champions with 250 team points.

“It’s still really special,” seventh-year Post Falls coach Pete Reardon said. “It’s a lot different than last year because it’s a different crew that did it. It really doesn’t feel like a carryover from last year. These guys went out and earned it on their own.”

De La Rosa finished 39-1.

Lovett, a freshman, finished the season 40-0.

NORTH IDAHO COLLEGE MEN’S BASKETBALL

It wasn’t the desired finish that the North Idaho College men’s basketball season had in mind to the season that started with a 30-0 record and a berth in the national tournament in March for the first time since 1997.

NIC received an at-large bid to the tournament in Hutchinson, Kan., after finishing runner-up to Salt Lake in the Region 18 tournament in Twin Falls in late February.

The Cardinals didn’t play at nationals until March 15, 17 days since losing in the regional finals. NIC’s season came to an end when the fifth-seeded Cardinals lost their first game at nationals, on a last-second shot by 12th-seeded Southwest Tennessee, 73-72.

The Cardinals finished 31-2 in their final season in the NJCAA. Salt Lake went on to win the national title.

“We played pretty well,” second-year NIC coach Corey Symons said. “A couple of Division I coaches talked to me beforehand about us being a first-time coaching staff and a team. You learn a lot. Everyone kept saying that you’ve just got to get past that first game, then anything can happen.”

NIC moved to the Northwest Athletic Conference following the season.

ST. MARIES FOOTBALL

After a 15-year playoff drought, then falling in the quarterfinals the last two seasons, St. Maries won its first football state championship in school history in November at Holt Arena in Pocatello, pulling away from Declo 31-8 in the state 2A championship game.

With under 30 seconds to go before halftime, Declo had the momentum. The Lumberjacks were down 8-6 and Declo was knocking on the door with under a minute before the half as Declo running back Keegan Duncan ripped off a 39-yard run that put the Hornets inside the 5-yard line.

If Declo scored, the Hornets could have potentially gone up 16-6 going into halftime if they made a two-point conversion. Instead, St. Maries did something the Lumberjacks have been doing all year — force turnovers.

Senior Donaven Rottini stripped Declo running back Tyler Mathews, senior Brady Martin picked up the spinning football, looked up, saw nothing but green in front of him and returned the ball 99 yards for a St. Maries touchdown.

The fumble sparked a dominant St. Maries second half and marked a momentum shift.

The Lumberjacks (12-0) shut down Declo’s potent rushing attack, outscoring the Hornets (10-3) 19-0 in the final 24 minutes.

“That was the play that changed all the momentum of the game,” St. Maries coach Craig Tefft said of Martin’s fumble return. “If they punch it in there, this second half has a new feel to it.” St. Maries forced six Declo turnovers, three of which turned into Lumberjack touchdowns.

DALE POFFENROTH

When it came down to it — and thinking about it a few days — Dale Poffenroth just started life and benched basketball.

At least, for now.

Poffenroth, 67, resigned as coach in February after 12 seasons and four state 5A championships at Coeur d’Alene. Poffenroth won 234 games at Coeur d’Alene, winning state titles in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2014.

Coeur d’Alene was second at state in 2006, 2007 and 2011. He guided the Vikings to state trophies in each of his first 10 seasons as coach.

The passing of Donna Dotts and Ginni Lenz — mothers of his former players at Coeur d’Alene — due to cancer in recent years, and the sudden passing of his longtime statistician Al Ranken at Central Valley a few months ago helped influence his decision.

Losing Donna and Ginni hit a little closer to home.

“They were two of the first team moms I had when I came to Coeur d’Alene in 2004,” Poffenroth said. “I was kind of like, ‘they’re a lot younger than I am and now they’re gone.’”

An accident when his wife, Debbie, slipped and fell in the parking lot following a game this season, breaking a bone in her shoulder, pushed him toward leaving, even before the end of the season.

Poffenroth, who taught history at Coeur d’Alene High, retired from teaching in 2012.

Over his 29-year high school coaching career, Poffenroth went 608-169 overall, including 234-66 at Coeur d’Alene. Before coming to Coeur d’Alene, Poffenroth also won three state titles at Central Valley and his teams placed second at state twice.

LAKE CITY GIRLS SOCCER

They certainly did not win their first state 5A girls soccer championship since 2012 the easy way. The Lake City Timberwolves wouldn’t have had it happen any other way.

Chloe Teets scored the winning goal in penalty kicks, as the sophomore midfielder completed a mammoth effort as Lake City beat Rocky Mountain of Meridian 2-1 in October at Coeur d’Alene High, by winning 5-4 in the climactic shootout.

Last season, the Timberwolves (14-3-2) lost to Centennial in PKs in the state title game.

As for this season — not so much. Same penalty kick scenario, different result.

Timberwolves coach Matt Ruchti has led the team since 2003. Lake City lost in 2000 in its only other appearance in the title game.

COEUR d’ALENE CHARTER GIRLS SOCCER

Coeur d’Alene Charter senior midfielder Brooklyn Cunningham’s second goal broke a tie with six minutes remaining as the Panthers beat the Community School Cutthroat Trout — a private school from Sun Valley — 2-1 in the championship match in October at the Sunway Soccer Complex in Twin Falls, for the Panthers’ second state 3A title in three years.

“The girls just had to find the energy they didn’t have,” first-year Coeur d’Alene Charter coach Stacy Smith said. “The girls were spent after the (semifinal) match against Weiser (a 2-1 overtime win). We had to dig deep. We’ve talked about always competing and found ourselves on top.”

Coeur d’Alene Charter (16-3-1) — which started its program in 2012 and was coached by David Baxter the first four years — beat Timberlake in the 2014 title game, the program’s first title. After a setback to Weiser in the title game in 2015, Charter claimed both the district and state title, something it hadn’t done in previous seasons.

STATE SOFTBALL, BASEBALL

Rain wreaked havoc with the state tourneys in eastern and south-central Idaho.

In 4A baseball, Lakeland lost its opening game, then headed for home when the losers bracket was eventually canceled.

In 4A softball, Day 1 was rained out, and only the winners bracket was contested on Day 2.

But the craziest tournament was the 5A softball event, where three days, four states, three fields and some 1,200 miles later, the Coeur d’Alene High softball team returned home with a third-place trophy.

As well as a somewhat hollow feeling.

The tournament started with eight teams playing on a Friday at Bonneville High in Idaho Falls. But rain and lightning affected the schedule. Coeur d’Alene and Eagle began their second-round game Friday evening, and played four scoreless innings before being stopped by the weather.

Rain on Saturday forced the tournament to be moved to Blackfoot, some 25 miles away, and organizers canceled the losers bracket, sending Lake City, which lost its first-round game, home prematurely. No games were played Saturday, and the tourney was moved to Meridian on Sunday, to be completed by the four teams in the winners bracket — Coeur d’Alene, Eagle, Rocky Mountain and Boise — playing what amounted to de facto semifinal games.

Some 40 hours and hundreds of miles later, Coeur d’Alene and Eagle resumed their game in the top of the fifth. Coeur d’Alene lost to Eagle, ranked No. 1 in the CBS MaxPreps Xcellent 25 rankings, 1-0 in eight innings in the completion of a semifinal game Sunday morning at Mountain View High. Since the losers bracket had been canceled due to weather, there was no avenue for the Vikings to get another shot at the defending state champs. Tourney organizers did create a third-place game between semifinal losers, and Coeur d’Alene came back after that tough loss to beat Boise 7-4, and finished 25-2.

Eagle beat Coeur d’Alene in last year’s state title game.

“When you stand back from the whole season, we were 25-2, and lost to the No. 1 team in the nation in the eighth inning on the tiebreaker rule. It’s a heckuva season,” Coeur d’Alene coach Darren Taylor said. “Some people thought it was better that we only had to beat them once. But I think if we could have gone again, we could have given them a game again.”