THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Crowded at the top in wide-open 5A softball race

With a real young team last year, Coeur d’Alene High made some strides in softball, a year after the Vikings returned a veteran squad that — like everyone else in Idaho — was denied a spring sports season due to COVID-19.

This year, Coeur d’Alene is building on last year’s successes. Last Monday, the Vikings swept Lewiston, last year’s 5A Inland Empire League champion. Then on Friday, Coeur d’Alene bounced back after giving up a six-run lead in the first game to beat Lake City 9-8 with three runs in the bottom of the seventh, then won the second game 16-3 for the sweep.

That left Coeur d’Alene (11-2, 8-2 Inland Empire League) with the fewest number of losses in league play entering this week, in first place by a few percentage points.

“Honestly, we’re doing the exact same thing we did last year — we developed a program, we’re using it, we knew they were progressing last year, we did well at the end, we knew we were going to be young, so we’re just continuing that to see if it works, and it’s working well, and we’re just going to keep going,” fourth-year Coeur d’Alene coach Bobbi Darretta said.

POST FALLS, which won the 5A Region 1 tournament last year as the No. 3 seed and ended up the only 5A team from North Idaho to make it to state, improved to 14-4, 11-3 (still percentage points out of first place, for those keeping track) with its sweep of Lake City on Tuesday.

Lewiston is 12-5, 9-3 and in third place as the battle for seeding to the 5A Region 1 tournament continues — whether that means anything or not. The Bengals, by winning their first softball league title in school history, got to play at home (at Airport Park) throughout regionals. But Lewiston, after beating Coeur d’Alene in the regional opener, lost to Post Falls in the regional title game, then fell two days later to Lake City in a loser-out game.

Speaking of Lake City, the Timberwolves have been regulars at state for more than a decade. Last year, after losing to eventual state champion Skyview of Nampa in a state play-in game, Lake City missed out on state for the first time since 2008.

True, the Timberwolves (4-12, 3-7) are taking their lumps with a young team this year. But that young team all but had Coeur d’Alene beat in the first game last week.

“We said early on there’s going to be a lot of growing pains, and we’ve definitely had our growing pains,” eighth-year Lake City coach Jesse Lenz said. “This league’s tough; it’s been a tough league for a long time. We can’t be at the top all the time; we can’t be at the bottom all the time, and that’s where you keep fighting, you keep learning, you keep growing, and that’s kinda where we’re at this year.”

HEAD-TO-HEAD results can leave you scratching your collective heads.

Post Falls beat Coeur d’Alene 9-4 in one game, lost to the Vikings by one run in the second game — then got swept at Lewiston by a combined 20-2. Lewiston then got swept at Coeur d’Alene.

Post Falls still has doubleheaders left with Coeur d’Alene and Lewiston, both at home. Coeur d’Alene has a twinbill with Moscow on Thursday, then two more vs. Sandpoint and Lake City.

So there figures to be even more movement in the standings in the final week-plus of the regular season.

One thing’s for sure — in two weeks, a regional championship will be held, somewhere. The regional champ will advance to state, and the regional runner-up can do the same by winning a state play-in game.

But whatever team or teams emerge from that tourney and move on to state is anyone’s guess.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter @CdAPressSports.