THE FRONT ROW WITH JASON ELLIOTT: Good now, but work in progress

Timberlake High track and field coach Brian Kluss has seen his fair share of good athletes since taking over the program in 2003.

"We've got a lot of good kids in here," Kluss said. "It's not my most experienced group of kids because we missed a year. But they've done a good job of working hard."

Getting them up to speed, well, that's something most — if not all — spring sports coaches in the area are trying to get done.

KLUSS ADDED that the program has 50 boys out, with 34 either being freshmen or sophomores.

"When we went to Lewiston, not a one of them had ran in a high school meet," said Kluss, whose team was unable to get a meet in before the season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic last year. "There's a big learning curve there between high school and middle school. There's probably a handful of them that would have qualified for state last year, and going to be a lot more of them this year."

Lakeland track and field coach Brian Etchison — in his third year in charge of the program — echoed Kluss' thoughts.

"We basically have two freshmen classes this year with the sophomores not competing," said Etchison, whose team did not compete in a meet last year. The Hawks were scheduled to compete at the Lewiston Invitational last year, the final prep event before things were shut down, but ended up not going.

"We had some of our sophomores compete at a JV meet (this year at Coeur d'Alene) so that it's not a 14- or 15-year-old kid running against a 17- or 18-year-old in their first high school event," Etchison said. "The kids compete really hard and it's going to be exciting to see our growth throughout the season."

For Corey Owen and his Lake City girls golf team, the Lewiston Invitational on March 14 was the program's first match in nearly two years.

"We would have had a really good team last year with the kids we had coming back," Owen said. "Some of our other kids needed that time last year to get better, so we'll have to rely heavily on our seniors for leadership this year."

AS IN any other year up north, sometimes the weather has other plans, with track meets, baseball and softball games being postponed due to rain earlier this week.

"We were supposed to have a JV game in Coeur d'Alene against Sandpoint, and it got rained out (Thursday)," Coeur d'Alene baseball coach Erik Karns said. "I know Sandpoint didn't get the rain that we did, so it was nice to be able to play those (varsity) games up here."

Then again, playing on Sandpoint High's new artificial turf at Memorial Field helped.

"It played really well despite a little rain," Karns said. "You get true hops and the ball gets on the kids really quick. For the kids, it was just a lot of fun to play in that environment and on that field."

No matter the weather, teams have remained thankful they are still going — rain or shine.

"It's great we've got the chance to play a full schedule unlike some of our cross-state rivals," Lake City baseball coach Paul Manzardo said. "We're getting a chance to develop each day. I wish we could have played some Washington schools this year, but we're just happy we get the chance to play."

Same here coaches.

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.