Ready for wild finish in IEL baseball

No, we’re not crowning anyone today.

But you can’t help but be a little bit impressed with how the prep baseball season has unfolded.

JUST IN case you’ve been hiding from the rain, snow, sleet ... whatever, members of the Coeur d’Alene High baseball team have put together a pretty good regular season this year.

The Vikings hit the road for the final two dates of league play, visiting Lewiston today in a 5A IEL doubleheader starting at noon.

It has been well documented that Coeur d’Alene turned Lewiston into its unofficial home away from home earlier this spring, the Vikings playing four of their first five games there — Moscow in a nonleague game, as well as three games in the North/South tournament at the end of March , all at Lewiston’s Church Field.

Coeur d’Alene is 17-1 overall, 8-0 in league.

“They really play for each other,” fourth-year Coeur d’Alene coach Nick Mahin said. “Every team tries to have that family mentality, but these guys really care about each other. It’s just fun to watch. It really is.”

Lake City fell 10-9 and 7-1 at Coeur d’Alene on Tuesday. The Timberwolves lost to the Vikings 10-2 and 18-4 in a doubleheader at home on April 12.

“We played a lot better (on Tuesday) than the last time we played Coeur d’Alene,” Lake City coach Paul Manzardo said. “We have quite a few guys that are playing now that are going to help us next year.”

And while playing games close now is one thing, it will be totally different in a few weeks during regionals when all it takes is two wins to advance to the state tournament.

“We’ve still got four games in league,” Manzardo said prior to Friday’s doubleheader sweep of Post Falls. “Anything can happen.”

Lewiston advanced to state last year after finishing last in league play. They wound up losing to Post Falls, the second-seed from District 1 in the third-place game at state.

Don’t forget, Lake City won its second state title in program history in 2016 starting as the third seed at regionals.

IF NOTHING else, the pitching rules that the Idaho High School Activities Association adopted a few years ago, coaches have had to get a little more creative when it comes to the pitching rotation.

So when a team is faced with playing three games in a matter of two days, like that of the Lakeland baseball team, what else is a coach to do but get creative?

In the second game of Tuesday’s 4A IEL matchup with Sandpoint, Lakeland coach Jason Bradbury turned to Colton Aragon, who has played catcher for most of the season, to give him a few innings.

Aragon pitched 6 1/3 innings, throwing 109 pitches for Lakeland, which beat Sandpoint 7-2 to improve to 4-2 in league with a doubleheader coming up Tuesday at Moscow. Pitch count rules state that anyone that throws from 86 to 110 pitches must have three days’ rest.

Aragon’s knowledge at catcher ended the game.

“I had to pull Colton with one out and the bases loaded and Tristan (Clift) came in to relieve him,” Bradbury said. “Tristan struck the next batter out for the second out. After the pitch, Colton recognized that the runner got a bigger than normal secondary (lead). He threw a dart down to second base, where (shortstop) Jaret Taylor put on the tag for the third out to close out the game. It was pretty impressive on Colton’s part and an awesome way to end the doubleheader. It was a great throw.”

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.