THE FRONT ROW WITH JASON ELLIOTT: The battle keeps going despite setbacks

This entire prep sports season could have been wiped away real fast.

No volleyball, soccer, cross country or swimming to be played.

Over, just like that.

And those Friday Night Lights that everyone looks forward to, well those could have been long gone as well.

Credit to the kids and coaches, they're still going.

THINGS HAVE certainly changed, with a few programs still yet to take the field yet.

Here we are, some two weeks away from the 3A district tournaments and neither the St. Maries boys or girls soccer teams have played a match yet.

Post Falls hasn’t had its first swim meet of the season either, but is scheduled to today at the Kroc Center in Coeur d’Alene.

Just incredible.

No, those teams aren’t planning to sit out the season, but due to a late start this fall due to COVID restrictions, neither team started practicing until early September. Once they were set to get going, the Northwest filled with smoke and those games were postponed earlier this week.

Indoors — where it’s safe for now — the Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy’s volleyball team might have scored its biggest win since joining the Intermountain League in 2016.

It’s kind of a shame that not many were able to see it.

In case you missed it, Coeur d’Alene Charter beat Timberlake in five sets at Holy Family Catholic School, the Panthers' home gym, on Thursday.

“We’re still limited on how many people we can have at matches,” Coeur d’Alene Charter coach Cynthia Beyer said. “Each girl can have two people at the match, but we’re still really limited on who can be at the gym because we rent it for home games.”

Charter has started 4-1 this season, 2-0 in league play.

“I’m just really pleased with how our outside hitters are playing right now,” Beyer said. “Maddie (Kociela) has been my middle for the last three years, and this year, I’ve been able to put her on the outside. And it’s been nice to see her come alive out there. She’s not huge, and sometimes against the taller players, she’d get overwhelmed at times. Now, she’s outside and tearing it up, and that’s been nice to see.”

DUE TO postponements, cancelations or other issues, some teams won’t even face each other until districts — if then in this wacky 2020 fall sports season.

Because of those postponements, St. Maries isn’t scheduled — as of yet — to face either Bonners Ferry or Timberlake this season. The Lumberjacks will face Immaculate Conception, a private boys Catholic School from Post Falls, twice.

The Lumberjack girls open the season — or are scheduled to do so — at Timberlake today.

After shutting down its football program in 2019, Kootenai High has been battling to get back on the field once again this year, but low numbers continue to cost the Warriors games. Next Friday's game between Kootenai and Mullan-St. Regis at John Drager Field in Mullan has been canceled due to low numbers — making it the fourth Kootenai football game canceled this year. Two of those games will go down as forfeits because they are North Star League games — vs. Clark Fork on Sept. 4 and next week's game vs. Mullan-St. Regis.

Instead of facing Kootenai next week, the Tiger co-op will play the Priest River JV in an 8-man game on Sept. 26 in Mullan.

Kootenai isn't scheduled to play again until Oct. 9 when it hosts Wallace in a nonleague game.

FOR SO many programs, it could have just been easier to just opt not to play this fall, for one reason or another.

But the games have continued.

Which has been nice to see if you still can.

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for The 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.