THE FRONT ROW WITH JASON ELLIOTT: Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2016
As with all teams, you’ve got to start somewhere.
In the case of the teams from North Idaho College, with the men’s basketball and women’s basketball squads getting going last Friday and the wrestling team home for a few matches on Friday and Saturday, it might have been just the start they needed.
IT IS well known that the NIC wrestling team never ducks a challenge.
After Saturday’s 25-19 dual win over Montana State-Northern of the NAIA, the team improved to 3-3 in dual matches this season. NIC split duals with Montana State-Northern, losing in the season opener in Havre 25-16. NIC lost at home to Clackamas, ranked 11th in the NJCAA on Friday.
“You’ve got to give Clackamas credit,” NIC wrestling coach Pat Whitcomb said. “They came to wrestle and they’re a good team. Some of our guys need to wrestle a full seven minutes and not lose focus, but some of them were outmatched as well. We’ve got some catching up to do.”
They caught up, at least a little bit, placing nine in Sunday’s Spokane Open at the Spokane Convention Center.
They’ll resume action on Dec. 1 when they wrestle Western Wyoming at the Las Vegas Convention Center the night before the annual Cliff Keen Invitational.
Before the NIC men’s basketball team beat Snow College to win the Portland Tip Off Classic, the Cardinals took down Portland Community College 87-79 in their season opener last Friday.
“We had to grind one out and had a lot of first-game mistakes,” NIC men’s basketball coach Corey Symons said. “But it was a hostile environment and the crowd was kind of on us. But it was a good win for us.”
Redshirt freshman Markus Golder scored 28 points for NIC.
“Markus played really well,” Symons said. “He did a really good job of attacking the basket.”
NIC beat former Scenic West Athletic Conference rival Snow 74-70 on Saturday to improve to 2-0 heading into next week’s Bigfoot/Cardinal Classic. NIC will face Pierce College of Lakewood, Wash., in the opening round on Dec. 2 at 7:30 p.m. at Rolly Williams Court.
AFTER LOSING in its opener in the Mesa College tournament in Arizona to Cochise College on Friday, as well as another against Mesa in the Mesa tournament, NIC bounced back with a win over Chandler-Gilbert on Sunday in Chandler, Ariz.
Cochise is an NJCAA Division I team, with both Mesa and Chandler-Gilbert playing in Divison II.
“We got off to a great start and were really scored and all that,” said NIC women’s basketball coach Chris Carlson of the game with Cochise. “Then we had two fouls called on (NIC point guard) Cierra (Dvorak) and had to sit her for the first half. Then Shae (Logozzo) landed on her knee and was out for the game and we got disassembled for a little bit.”
NIC trailed 50-17 at halftime against Cochise.
“We played even with them in the second half, and they’re pretty talented,” Carlson said. “We just had too many turnovers. We’re young, but we got better in the second half.”
FANS WILL find out soon enough just how good each of these teams are.
Chances are, it will happen sooner than later.
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.