Almost time to return to the work

With the start of fall practices starting in area high school sports in a few weeks, a few different storylines step out as teams get back to practices again.

If you’re scoring at home, the first soccer and football practices are Aug. 6, with swimming, volleyball and cross country starting a few days later, on Aug. 10.

Previews of those individual teams and sports is coming sooner than you think.

MEMBERS OF the Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy girls soccer program have the chance to appear in a fifth straight state 3A championship game, should the Panthers advance when the tournament is played Oct. 18-20 at the Sunway Soccer Complex in Twin Falls.

Kind of amazing to think as the program just got its start in 2012.

Since that first season, Charter has won 79 matches, going unbeaten in 2017 with a 17-0-1 record while starting three freshmen and replacing eight senior starters from 2016.

Charter also is scheduling up again this year with games at St. George’s — a Washington 2B (enrollment up to 214 students) — in Spokane and Lakeland, a 4A Inland Empire League school, in addition to its 10-game schedule in the Intermountain League.

The same kind of goals are in the air for the Lake City girls program, which claimed the state 5A title in 2016, the last time the tournament was up north.

Lake City, barring some postponements here and there, will play 10 of its 11-match regular season in the month of September.

GRADUATION MIGHT have hit some of the bigger schools a little hard in football, with Coeur d’Alene’s Colson Yankoff (Washington) and Post Falls’ Nate Buer (Montana Tech), both two-year starting quarterbacks for their schools, now at college.

It’s quite possible that the 8-man schools at Lakeside and Kootenai could look a lot different.

As it goes, when small schools graduate players, they lose players on both sides of the ball.

With low numbers last year, Kootenai won its first two games before losing six straight to finish the season 2-6. The Warriors lost two players to graduation in the spring.

Lakeside went 4-2 to start the season before dropping its final two games to finish at 4-4 in 2017, and graduated three-year starting quarterback Bryar Sanchez.

NO MATTER who returns or who’s gone, teams are going to look a little different, no matter if it’s football, soccer or volleyball.

There’s been some coaching changes in addition to teams possibly adapting to the players they’ve got around them.

With only a month before the first games of the fall, it’s almost time to find out just who’s going to do what.

And prove that they’re the one’s to watch as the season progresses.

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.