A good start in baseball for 5A schools
If last weekend’s showings by area teams in the North/South baseball tournament in the Lewiston-Clarkston area are any indication, it could be a fun finish as far as the area teams are concerned in that sport.
Lake City won the tournament as the only unbeaten team, going 4-0.
Coeur d’Alene and Lewiston were right behind at 3-1 and Post Falls went 2-2, plenty to keep fans encouraged.
ONLY TWO of these teams advance to state, and that’s if the regional runner-up wins a play-in game to advance.
“We’re playing pretty good baseball right now,” said Lake City coach Paul Manzardo after his team capped the weekend by beating Mountain View of Meridian 9-1 and Caldwell 8-3 on Saturday to improve to 8-0 on the season. “We’re kind of beat up right now and not used to playing as many games as we have.”
Lake City opened the season on March 15, then played a doubleheader against Moscow and a makeup game against Freeman before last weekend’s tournament.
“We had to turn around and play seven games this week, so we’re a little beat up,” Manzardo said Saturday. “We’ve been battling the elements a little bit. It was cold and a little rainy in spots, but overall it was a good weekend.”
Manzardo added that overnight rain threatened the second day of the tournament.
“We were real fortunate to get those games in,” Manzardo said. “Clarkston did a great job of getting the field ready because it rained pretty good on Friday night. I was real happy we got to go play some quality opponents. Overall, our district did fairly well.”
THE LONE losses for Coeur d’Alene and Lewiston came to Mountain View.
“All things considered, we battled all weekend,” said Coeur d’Alene coach Nick Mahin, whose team played for the first time since the passing of the school’s principal Troy Schueller last Wednesday. “We’ve got some things to improve on before league play begins.”
Coeur d’Alene scored 37 runs and allowed 17 over the tournament.
“One thing that’s good is we can hit the baseball and pitch,” Mahin said. “Defensively, we’re not where we want to be at quite yet.”
Area teams, with the exception of Lakeland, are off this week for spring break. Lakeland travels to the Boise area for the Buck’s Athletics Spring Classic starting on Thursday.
“Luckily, we’ve got a break and need to take some time off,” Mahin said. “We need to get back to the fundamentals. Our hitting is great, but that’s just one aspect of the game. Going 3-1 down there, we took care of business. But we need to get better each day. We’ve got some work to do, but I’m proud of the guys. They showed some grit and put that adversity behind them.”
Post Falls came close against Mountain View, losing 2-1 in the tournament. The Trojans won their next two games, beating Caldwell and Hillcrest before falling to Clarkston to conclude the tournament.
Sure, each team still needs to fine tune a few things to get where they want to be in mid-May.
Those 12 games within the 5A Inland Empire League should be a good indication of who is all tuned up for a deep run, or left singing the blues.
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.