THE FRONT ROW with JASON ELLIOTT: When rivals collide, the fans win also

There’s just something about a rivalry game in sports.

Whether that be at the high school, college or professional level, it’s just different.

The energy in the gym, different.

Effort from the players, that goes up a notch.

To win, you can do a lot of things for your program.

Lose, and it could set you back.

LAST SATURDAY’s basketball games between North Idaho College and Southern Idaho at Rolly Williams Court, the first league games since the Cardinals left the Scenic West Athletic Conference following the 2015-16 season, were intense from start to finish.

What else did you expect, right?

Unlike NIC’s previous stint in the Scenic West, only the top four in the league advance to the conference tournament at the site of the regular season champion.

NIC (18-6, 4-2 SWAC) is fourth in the conference. CSI, which lost at NIC 91-73 last Saturday, leads the conference at 18-6, 6-1.

“It was a big win for us and really puts us back in the mix,” said NIC men’s basketball coach Corey Symons, in his 10th season as head coach and 20th with the school. “We’ve got a long road stretch coming up, so we’ve got to regroup and get ready to go.”

NIC remains home today to face Southern Nevada, a team the Cardinals beat in Las Vegas 83-82 in overtime on Jan. 25. The Cardinals then visit Snow and Salt Lake next weekend, teams that handed NIC losses to open conference play.

“We finish with five games on the road, so we’ll have to get dialed in,” Symons said. “But we put ourselves in a good position with some big wins.”

Even though it had been a few years since CSI had visited, it didn’t take Randy Rogers long to find a few of his favorite places in Coeur d’Alene upon returning.

“Some of the streets are a little different and there’s some new businesses and that, but I found my way to Hudson’s burgers,” Rogers said. “I love coming up here and those battles with (former NIC women’s basketball coaches) Chris Carlson and Greg Crimp. I don’t know what my record is up here — it’s probably .500 — but I keep telling my kids that NIC is the only team in our conference to win a national title (2011). And they didn’t even win the league that year, but they still won the national title.”

A QUICK glance at the MaxPreps rankings, which are used for seeding for state tournaments, has Lake City sitting second in the 5A rankings, less than a point behind top-seeded Boise.

Lake City was the top seed until falling to Coeur d’Alene in the 5A Region 1 championship game. The Vikings have been ranked fourth, behind Rigby by also less than a point.

The Timberwolves, in a play-in game for the second straight year, will have to get past Timberline High of Boise just to advance to state.

Should they, the Timberwolves likely won’t go quietly next week.

Lake City’s losses came to Rocky Mountain of Meridian at home in December, then on Tuesday to Coeur d’Alene.

Coeur d’Alene has losses to Boise, Rigby, Lake City twice and Sandpoint, which has been near the top of the 4A rankings for a majority of the season.

The Vikings, playing some of their best basketball of the season during a current four-game winning streak, could be poised to make some noise again next week in Nampa.

Next Saturday night, two teams will play for the state 5A girls basketball title at the Ford Idaho Center at 7 p.m. PST.

If it happens to be the teams separated by three or less miles, I don’t think anyone here will complain.

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.