THE FRONT ROW WITH MARK NELKE: Sunday, Oct. 23, 2016

Four years ago, when state high school soccer last visited our fair region, Post Falls’ boys and Lake City’s girls captured state titles.

This past weekend, when the state 5A tourneys returned to North Idaho, Coeur d’Alene boys and Lake City’s girls reached the championship games?

Coincidence?

Maybe. Maybe not.

“I would just argue it’s an advantage for whatever team, or whatever region is hosting,” Coeur d’Alene High coach Jeff Lake said. “It’s a long travel for both North and South and East ... the time change factors in ... ”

Lake noted several other factors that help North Idaho teams when the tourneys are up here, including sleeping in their own beds, eating home cooking, etc.

Then, after the Vikings’ semifinal victory over Centennial on Friday, he noted the local spectators who showed up at Post Falls High to root his team on.

“We had our fans there, we had our student body there. That doesn’t happen when we go to Boise. We go to Boise or Idaho Falls and its just (light clapping). It was a special day to get the student body out, and the administration supported that, getting them out, checking them in and doing it the right way.”

NORTH IDAHO teams are used to traveling to state competitions — to the Boise area, to the Twin Falls area, to eastern Idaho.

The road to state is a long one indeed — so much so that schools up here kinda sorta get used to it, and make the best of it.

For Boise area teams, many of their state events are right in their back yard — boys and girls basketball, baseball, track and field, usually soccer.

So they look at traveling to state events a little differently.

“I enjoy being somewhere else because the guys are all together, and the team camaraderie aspect of it, is kind of a nice feel,” said Boise boys soccer coach Mike Darrow, whose Braves beat Coeur d’Alene in Saturday’s state title match for the school’s fifth state title in his 16 years as coach. “It is nice sleeping in your own bed, or playing on your own field, but I don’t see it as much of an advantage. I tend to like the camaraderie aspect of it.”

One advantage to playing in the Boise area, he said, is the artificial turf fields available for use at Meridian, Rocky Mountain and Eagle high schools.

The games this past weekend were held on grass fields at Lake City, Post Falls and Coeur d’Alene high schools that were already taxed by a rainy fall. Thursday’s Noah’s Ark-like rain didn’t help matters. Coeur d’Alene’s field was somewhat of a mud bog by Saturday. Post Falls’ field held up a little bit better, except for the Diamond-Dry used to cover up the mud at one end of the field, and players made splashes in the standing water at the other end.

“I don’t mind playing on turf, so it holds up in weather — like it was this weekend — a whole lot better,” Darrow said. “The surface, especially the first day when it was pouring down rain, was a little more difficult.”

COULD BE worse. Until about a decade ago, state soccer was one week later — this coming weekend, the same weekend as state volleyball. But several years of poor weather on that weekend prompted the state to start the season a week earlier and end it a week earlier.

“For whatever reason, the one week does help a ton,” Darrow said. “There was 3 inches of snow in one of our games (in eastern Idaho, when the tourney was one week later).”

State soccer returns to North Idaho in two years for the 4A boys and girls tourneys. The 5A boys and girls tourneys are scheduled to be back in North Idaho in 2020.

Turf fields around here by then might be a bit of a stretch, so rooting for dry weather appears to be the only option.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter@CdAPressSports.