Finding a way to the final goal

Sure, it’s still 1-2 at the state soccer tournament for the Coeur d’Alene High boys soccer team.

But just getting to that point could be an accomplishment in itself.

HAVING PREVIOUS coach Jeff Lake step down at the end of last season was one thing.

Lake led the Vikings to the state 5A finals in 2016, and to the tournament again with only five seniors on its roster in 2017, going 0-2.

Lake went 77-37-17 at Coeur d’Alene, after a 10-5-2 finish in 2017.

Last spring, Lake was replaced by Russ Carder, but Carder did not end up coaching a match for the Vikings this year. Carder ended up taking a teaching position in Spokane just before the start of fall practices.

In stepped Braden Ridgewell, a 2014 Coeur d’Alene High graduate, who’d coached the Viking junior varsity the past two years.

“At the start of the year, we really started from scratch,” Ridgewell said. “Our seniors wanted to play a different style of soccer this year, and the players started to buy in throughout the year.”

That style of soccer required more attention to the possession of the ball.

“By the time we started league play (Sept. 15 vs. Lake City) to the state tournament and the last Lake City game (the consolation final last Saturday), our progression was huge,” Ridgewell said.

In its last two games of the regular season — both on the road — against Lewiston and Sandpoint, Coeur d’Alene outscored its opponents 9-0. To open regionals on Oct. 6, Cd’A beat Lewiston 7-0 before falling to Lake City 3-0.

And despite losing in its finale to Lake City 2-1 in the consolation championship, Ridgewell feels the team progressed right as he’d hoped.

“We really played a good game of soccer,” said Ridgewell, who continued his playing career at North Idaho College in 2014 and 2015. “I couldn’t be more proud of the way they played throughout the year.”

WITH INJURIES and a disastrous first two games of the season, if somebody told me that the Seattle Seahawks could be 3-3 after the bye week, I’d probably call them a liar.

Well, it’s no joke.

Somehow, Seattle — which hasn’t had starting linebacker K.J. Wright play a snap yet — has been a lot more competitive in games after two losses to start the season to Denver and Chicago. To be fair, nobody has beaten the Los Angeles Rams this year, so a two-point loss at home seems a lot better than it was.

At this point in the season, the games will get a lot more difficult.

In December, Seattle will welcome San Francisco, Minnesota and Kansas City to town, all in primetime (at least for now) in some form or another.

In the case of Minnesota and Kansas City, those games are going to matter a lot to those teams it appears.

Seattle has had an ability to hang around in recent years and find a way into the playoffs, often times by winning its own division.

While that won’t happen this year because the Rams will run away with the West, Seattle could still find a way back to the postseason.

Something that didn’t seem likely just a month ago.

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.