End is near in soccer, other fall sports

A longtime soccer coach in the area made a great point on a telephone call the other day.

“Can you believe that the season’s just about over?”

No, not really.

No kidding, we’re almost to the fall finish line.

MAYBE IT was the obscene amount of postponements this fall — and there was a lot of them — or the fact that Lake City and Coeur d’Alene haven’t played each other yet, but it just seemed to fly by this year.

Don’t worry fans, the Timberwolves and Vikings are going to play today, weather permitting.

Even more amazing, the Post Falls boys wrapped up 5A Inland Empire League play on Thursday at Coeur d’Alene, and will conclude the regular season at home on Tuesday against Sandpoint.

The Coeur d’Alene boys have two matches left, with Lake City still needing to make up a match at Lewiston. That date is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.

On Monday, Post Falls’ girls will conclude league play at Coeur d’Alene and Lewiston visits Lake City in a match moved up a day due to a lack of officials.

Fans from the north got the chance to brave the weather to see a few of these teams fight for state titles in 2016 locally this year. While the tournaments won’t be close this year — they’ll be played in the Boise area — the next week could match anything you’ll see down south Oct. 19-21 when the state tournament unfolds.

AT THE beginning of the season, one coach told me that his team learned a lot from having to sit at home and watch after failing to qualify for state last year.

So far, it appears to have paid off with his team in position to host a postseason match in the opening round. They won’t qualify just for rolling the soccer balls out, but the chances are better at home than on the road in most cases.

Soon thereafter, we’ll reach the postseason in volleyball, cross country and eventually football in the area.

And some of these teams have a legit shot at bringing home some hardware.

Fortunately, we won’t have to travel so far to see the state volleyball tournaments; they’ll be here this year.

My advice, go out and enjoy it while you can.

They’re going to be done before you know it.

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 @JECdAPress