THE FRONT ROW WITH JASON ELLIOTT: Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Last Saturday was almost like a perfect storm.

Two teams winning in the consolation championship game, another fighting back for a third-place finish and another steamrolling its way to its first championship in program history.

Four trophies out of four teams competing at the state girls basketball tournaments, it was quite the weekend indeed for area teams.

THE BIGGEST of the wins came by Timberlake High of Spirit Lake, which beat Marsh Valley 62-35 in the 3A championship, giving coach Matt Miller and his team its first title in five tries over the last six seasons.

“Honestly, it’s more relief than anything,” Timberlake coach Matt Miller said. “It’s great, but it doesn’t really change anything. It’s good, but I’m more happy for the girls. They’ve put so much heart and soul into it. Not just in the games, but when the real work is put in. Practices, offseason, that’s where it’s at. I’m really proud of them for staying focused.”

At state, Timberlake won games by 40 points, 11 points and 27 in the championship game against Marsh Valley.

“They’re a great group,” said Timberlake coach Matt Miller, who wrapped up his 11th season as coach. “They were just able to stay focused for the entire season, when that’s not easy to do. To stay focused, not be OK with that and settle for that. To be able to finish the way we finished was great.”

“The feeling of holding that gold trophy is pretty amazing,” Timberlake coach Matt Miller said.

After a bit of a hiccup in its state opener, Lake City bounced back in a big way, rolling past Highland High of Pocatello (59-29) and Hillcrest High of Ammon (68-42) on Saturday to finish fourth.

Lake City graduates five seniors, with three starters off this year’s state roster returning.

“We’ve got a good corp coming back,” fourth-year Lake City coach Bryan Kelly said. “Our goal is to get back down here and get the blue trophy. We just need to keep getting better. Now that they’ve got a little bit of a taste, they want more.

Next year, they want to come down here and do some damage.”

Throw in wins by Sandpoint (third in 4A) and Lakeside (fourth in 1A Division II), and there wasn’t a single team from the district that lost after Thursday. Pretty impressive.

THINGS HAVE really came full circle for Lake City High graduate and current Centennial High coach Cassie Bro.

Bro took over the program in 2012, getting Cetennial to this year’s title game before falling to Mountain View 62-50 at the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa.

On Thursday night, she faced her alma mater in the opening round — much like she did in the first round the 1998 state 5A tournament — when the Timberwolves faced the Patriots.

“I probably wouldn’t have wanted to play any other team,” Bro said. “I remember going to state when I was at Lake City and the first team we played was Centennial, and we lost to them. But it was really good to play them.”

Bro graduated from Lake City in 2000 and played at Idaho State in 2000-01 before an injury halted her playing career. During her hiatus, she was the interim coach at the Air Force Academy Prep School in 2003-04, finishing with a 19-9 record before returning to play at Alaska-Anchorage the next year.

During the game, Bro got to reunited with former teacher Joe Partington, who teaches Latin.

“It was so good to see him,” Bro said. “I hadn’t seen him since high school, so it was really good to see him.”

While she didn’t get to see her former club basketball coach Chris Carlson — he was coaching the North Idaho College women’s basketball team against Salt Lake — Bro had to gameplan for Carlson’s daughter, Nina, who has verballed to Idaho for the 2017-18 season.

“She’s a stud,” Bro said. “She reminds me of a player back when I used to play named Aubree Johnson. She can shoot it, she can drive and she’s a great player. I played for him and he was my club coach with the Spokane Stars. She was just itty bitty back then, so it was nice to see her play.”

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d’Alene Press. He can be reached by telephone at (208) 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at jelliott@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter @JEPressSports.