Time to prove it, or go home

Sure, there’s plenty of season and stuff to prove when it comes to area soccer in the coming weeks.

The teams that some expected to contend — Coeur d’Alene, Lake City, Post Falls, Timberlake and Coeur d’Alene Charter — are doing just that.

The Panthers have been one of the top programs in the girls’ ranks for the last few years.

This year, the boys are trying to build that same kind of tradition.

YOU MIGHT think that being a first-year program, there might be a little bit of growing pains with the Coeur d’Alene Charter boys soccer program.

Not so much.

Coeur d’Alene Charter opened the season with three straight wins, downing Immaculate Conception in the program’s first game, then beating Priest River and Orofino by shutout.

After a 2-1 setback to Timberlake on Sept. 10, Charter’s lone other loss in league play was at Bonners Ferry on Sept. 19.

Charter has won its last two games in league to improve to 8-3-2, 6-2-2 in league, and faces IML-leading Timberlake today at 2 at The Fields at Real Life Ministries in Post Falls.

“I think them playing soccer every day and learning more knowledge about the game has been huge for them,” first-year Charter coach Justin Nitti said. “They’re gelling a little bit on the field, which has been nice to see as well.”

By comparison, the Charter girls were 8-9-1 in their inaugural season (2012), and have advanced to state in six straight seasons since, including winning the last three state titles.

The top two teams from the 3A District 1-2 tournament advance to the state tournament Oct. 24-26 at Vallivue High in Caldwell.

“Their ability and feel for the game has grown throughout the season,” Nitti said. “We’ll see where we go with that during districts.”

Having those district matches — girls too — on the turf and under the lights (if necessary) at The Fields in Post Falls might not hurt either.

In recent years, games have came down to shootouts after scoreless overtimes in the dusk, something that might not be as fun as any coaches might like to admit.

BARRING ANY really, really crazy scenarios, the 5A teams shouldn’t have any issue with chasing daylight when they begin regional play.

In most cases, those championship games get moved up an hour from their normal regular season time of 4:30 p.m.

So far, the lone crazy situations that some of the area soccer teams have had to deal with have been the snow and cold that hit the area last Saturday morning.

Though it didn’t stick around long, it still was a pain, according to some coaches.

At Coeur d’Alene, which hosted Post Falls, an inch of snow covered the field.

Still, they played.

“The weather played a huge impact for both teams,” Coeur d’Alene coach Braden Ridgewell said. “It really came down to who was going to make the most of the unpredictable events during the game.”

Coeur d’Alene won three straight matches by shutout in six days between Sept. 24 and 30, then played to a 3-3 draw at Lake City on Wednesday.

“Seeing everything click in the last week makes me excited to see how far this team can go,” Ridgewell said.

As for the unpredictable, you know how this story goes.

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.