Game over, for now

COEUR d’ALENE — Board members of the Coeur d’Alene American Legion baseball program knew that the 2018 season was going to be a trying one at the Class AA level.

They tried.

It just didn’t work out in the end.

Citing a low number of players — either due to work commitments or injury — the program opted to end its season, concluding the season during the annual Spokane/Coeur d’Alene Fourth of July wood-bat classic.

“It’s been a challenging year,” said Erik Karns, the coach of the Single A Lumbermen, who open the district tournament on Friday at Memorial Field in Sandpoint. “With the AA program, we knew it was going to be tough to field a team full of recent graduates, or rising high school seniors. The legion board and coaching staff didn’t want to compromise our commitment to the younger program. We didn’t want to bring those kids up and have a setback in their growth. We had to be creative in our approach and moved some kids around, but kept that Single-A group together.”

Coeur d’Alene finished 5-4 this season, playing only North Idaho League games against Lewis-Clark and Prairie and in the Fourth of July tournament. Coeur d’Alene was 4-0 in league this year.

“(Lumbermen AA coach) Kevin (Dunton) tried his best to get those commitments out of the kids,” Karns said. “But it was a little bit of a struggle to get a group that could play that abbreviated season. We had a few fall through and some injuries that hurt us.”

“We’ve been very appreciative of Kevin Dunton as our AA head coach the last two seasons,” Coeur d’Alene Legion board president Mike Thompson said. “This season was particularly challenging, and he handled it professionally with the best interest of the players and program always in mind. He will be missed, though we’ve asked him to remain in the program in an advisory role to the coaching staff and board.”

The Lumbermen draw players from both Coeur d’Alene and Lake City high schools.

Karns added that work obligations for a few also made things difficult.

“At that older level, it’s just a lot of different things that are pulling those kids in different directions,” Karns said. “We put the team together with the hopes we’d be able to put things together. It just didn’t work out this year.”

As for that Single-A team, the Lumbermen enter districts 32-14.

“The roster on the Single A team has been fantastic this year,” said Karns, who coaches the Coeur d’Alene High freshmen team. “They’re all going to be competing at the varsity or junior varsity level next year. I’ve always felt this group has a lot of talent and they’ve got a strong commitment to playing Lumbermen baseball.”

Karns will take over for Dunton at the AA level next year. He’ll be assisted by Paul Manzardo, the current Lake City High coach, who coaches with Karns at the Single A level.

“As we look ahead, we fully anticipate having a competitive team next year,” Karns said. “All the way down, from the 13-U team, they were successful and really merged together and played well as a group. We knew we’d have some talent coming up and have an ability to play well.”

“We are excited about the future of the program with Erik leading the way and Paul as the assistant,” Thompson said. “We believe it’s important to have close ties to both high schools that feed the Lumbermen program, and having Erik and Paul will help us continue to move in that direction.”

But for now, Karns will turn his attention to the Class A Area A (district) tournament in Sandpoint.

“We had a big goal of winning the regular season championship,” Karns said. “Some of the teams in that level are drawing from juniors and seniors of areas that don’t have a AA team. Being able to compete, it was a big deal. We’re really excited about the future.”