THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: 5A, 4A IELs keep trying to find what works for all

The Inland Empire League is part scheduling alliance — think the recent talks between the Pac-12, ACC and Big Ten, minus the millions of TV dollars.

And the IEL, which consists of 5A schools Coeur d'Alene, Lake City, Post Falls and Lewiston, and 4A schools Sandpoint, Lakeland and Moscow, is part kindred spirits.

After being a combined league in the early 2000s, they have been separate leagues for the past decade — with good reason.

There was a time back in the day when Sandpoint, a 4A school, was the best volleyball team in North Idaho — and the Bulldogs' boys and girls soccer teams were among the best.

But that's no longer the case. In general, the 5As beat up on the 4As, but in some cases, some 4A programs are trying to close the gap.

And the bottom line is, with fewer scheduling options outside North Idaho — the 5As and 4As need each other.

With the 5As playing just six league games in many sports, and the 4As playing only four, that's a lot of nonleague foes to find.

If they even can.

So as a compromise of sorts — called the Inland Empire League 4A/5A Collective Agreement — 5A IEL schools and 4A IEL schools have to play at least once in soccer, volleyball and basketball, and twice in baseball and softball, with those games counting in the combined league standings.

"I thought it was a really good compromise," Lake City athletic director and boys basketball coach Jim Winger said. "I understand playing twice can limit 5A schools from playing other people. But the 4As really, really struggle to find games. If we’re going to play them, might as well have them count. I think it was one of those win-win things for the league, where we could help them out."

"I think it was a happy medium," said Mike Randles of Coeur d'Alene, who was athletic director for five years before becoming the school's principal this fall. "It was mindful of our geography and respectful of each other, but I also think it gives coaches a little bit of flexibility to meet the needs of their program.

"Like I said in one of those (league) meetings when I was coaching (wrestling) at Sandpoint and we were nails, I wanted to go to Tri-State, and when we had years when we were weak, I wanted to get to a tournament that was more mindful of the level of our program at that point."

Not everyone agrees with a combined 5A/4A IEL.

"If I had my way, we wouldn’t have to play them at all," Post Falls AD Craig Christensen said. "If you want to play, you can play, and if you don’t want to play, you don’t have to play."

Sandpoint AD Kris Knowles said the Bulldog coaches have the mindset of wanting to play the 5As, no matter what the result, because they think playing up improves their programs.

"At the end of the day, we have seven schools that need to work together," said Knowles, a former boys basketball coach at Lake City. "Fully understand that some of the 5A schools, particularly in basketball, were not overly excited about playing twice against the 4As, but I think the compromise is good. I think the majority of the schools are going to continue to play twice, just only one of them will count. We all have to look out what’s best for our school, and best for our region, and we have to balance that a little bit."

Schools can play each other multiple times if they choose, but just one game (or two, in baseball and softball) will count toward seeding to their respective regional tournaments.

And in the interest of equity and fairness, the league game(s) will be when the 4A team hosts the 5A team in boys soccer, volleyball, girls basketball and baseball, and when the 5A team hosts the 4A school in girls soccer, boys basketball and softball.

That happened already, on Friday, when Sandpoint's boys soccer team hosted Lake City, and Lake City's girls soccer team hosted Sandpoint. Those were league games.

Last year, in a combined IEL, the 5As and 4As played each other twice in league play in all those sports ... except when they didn't.

The caveat was, if not all 5A vs. 4A league games were able to be played (mostly due to COVID-19), standings would revert — even in the middle of the season — to separate 5A IEL and 4A IEL standings. This happened in volleyball, soccer, boys basketball and softball last year.

The only sports which ended up having combined IEL standings were girls basketball and baseball.

Seldom did 5A/4A league games affect standings or seeding — though it could have in baseball, where Sandpoint's win over Post Falls could have denied the Trojans the top seed to the 5A Region 1 tournament.

In some respects, it's more of a clerical issue and scheduling issue than anything else — some coaches either didn't know a 5A vs. 4A game was a league game, or didn't care.

Sandpoint and Lakeland, in particular, have embraced playing the bigger schools as a way to improve their programs.

"You either get with it, or you get left behind," new Lakeland AD Matt Neff said.

Other than scheduling convenience, the plan was to "have more games mean something," as many ADs said.

Two of the most successful area programs over the past decade-plus — Coeur d'Alene High football and Post Falls High boys basketball — will play anybody, anywhere, even if it means long bus trips.

I get that not everybody has the means — or even the desire — to spend that much time on the road each season. But it's not just a coincidence those programs are as successful as they are.

Others, through necessity or otherwise, started to embrace the "anytime, anywhere" motto last year and are doing it this year in basketball, with road trips to southern Idaho and eastern Idaho.

Ideally, a combined IEL would be the best of both worlds — competitive games without the lengthy travel.

Sometimes those games are — think any 5A team vs. 4A Lakeland in boys basketball last season — but sometimes they aren't (a 77-22 game in girls basketball can't be fun for either squad).

Until they had to last year, Post Falls' boys basketball team hadn't played some of the 4A IEL schools in years.

"In my opinion, this is a basketball issue," Christensen said. "Because the gap has grown so much in basketball the last 5, 6, 7 years … we’ve always played the 4A schools twice in soccer, in volleyball, in most of the sports. It’s just in basketball it got to the point where the games just weren’t as competitive.

"And really, the freshman and JV levels were having a tough time with that gap also. Sometimes the 4As are pretty good, and it’s a good matchup for you. And sometimes they’re just not. And you have the ability to schedule around that a little bit."

Knowles said the combined league benefitted Sandpoint's girls basketball program, in particular.

"At the end of the day, it made it that all those games meant something," he said. "It’s really easy as a coach to say, 'this is a nonleague game, it doesn’t matter as much as if we were playing Lakeland or Moscow,' and that’s not healthy. We made a decision as a school to say that every game should count. I think it paid some benefits.

"Girls basketball, as an example, really used that a lot throughout the season. It gave them some experience going down the stretch, and playing Coeur d’Alene and Lake City and Post Falls and Lewiston, really helped them as far as battling though that district tournament and getting to the state tournament."

So hopefully, making the 5As and 4As play each other at least once in volleyball, soccer and basketball (and twice in baseball and softball) will mean competitive games in addition to helping teams fill their schedules, while also allowing the 5A teams in particular to find challenging nonleague foes elsewhere in the region as well.

That might not be a perfect world, but with the constant struggles with COVID-19, poor air quality and other, divisive, issues, it's better than the world we live in now.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter @CdAPressSports.