THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: A memorable senior night in St. Maries

A few weeks ago, St. Maries High boys basketball manager Brennan Green came to Lumberjacks coach Bryan Chase with an idea.

“If I get 10 practices in, can I play on senior night?” Green asked his coach.

Why not?, Chase figured.

So Green, in his third year as the Lumberjacks’ team manager, started on senior night last Friday against Timberlake. 

In a sportsmanship-like pregame arrangement between Chase and Timberlake coach Mike LaFountaine, St. Maries won the tip, and Green scored the first basket of the game.

“It was a pretty cool deal,” Chase said.

It gets better.

Brennan’s dad, Jeff Green, was a teacher and coach at Kootenai High and Sandpoint High. He was diagnosed with brain cancer and died in 2011, when Brennan was only a few years old.

Bryan graduated with Jeff in 1990 from St. Maries High, and from the University of Idaho in 1995. 

“We go way back,” Chase said.

Turns out, Mike LaFountaine worked with Jeff at Kootenai High, when Mike was teaching and coaching there. 

Chase put Brennan back in the game in the closing seconds, so he could be on the floor at the end of St. Maries’ 71-63 victory.

Brennan tried out for the basketball team as a freshman.

The following year he came up to Chase and said, “I want to help.”

“He’s been amazing,” Chase said of his three-year varsity manager.

HOW COOL was it to see an all-North Idaho final in 5A girls basketball last weekend?

Second-seeded Lake City and fourth-seeded Coeur d’Alene put on a show at the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa, before Coeur d’Alene inched away in the second half to win its second straight state title.

Since Lake City beat Coeur d’Alene in the 2007 title game, an all-North Idaho title game happened three other times in 5A prior to last Saturday — 2010 (Coeur d’Alene over Lewiston), 2011 (Lewiston over Coeur d’Alene) and 2013 (Post Falls over Coeur d’Alene).

The good news is, despite the number of teams in North Idaho in Idaho’s largest classification shrinking from four to three next year, last Saturday wasn’t necessarily the last chance for an all-North Idaho final.

Next year, what has been 5A will become 6A — except for Lewiston, which “drops” from the old 5A to the new 5A, joining Lakeland, Sandpoint and Moscow.

Still, the new three-team 6A Region 1 (Coeur d’Alene, Lake City and Post Falls) will receive 1.5 berths to state in 2025, meaning the regional runner-up can still get to state by winning a play-in game.

The new, four-team 5A Region 1, despite growing by one team, will still get only one berth to state next year. 

And in the future, there will be years 6A Region 1 gets 1 berths to state, and 5A Region 1 gets 1.5.

So if anyone is worried about a good team from the North being left home in the next few years, based on the numbers game, well …

Now might be the time to push for that 12-team state tournament.

IN BOYS basketball this week, the top five teams in 2A, according to the MaxPreps rankings, are all from District 3.

Unfortunately for District 3 — and good news for the rest of the state, including the Central Idaho League — that district only got 2.5 berths to state.

Two guaranteed berths, with the third-place finisher getting a shot through the play-in route.

So those top five teams wound up cannibalizing each other in the district tournament. 

No. 2-ranked Ambrose and No. 4 Nampa Christian have qualified for state, and met for the district title Wednesday night.

No. 3 New Plymouth was eliminated last Saturday by No. 5 Melba.

Cole Valley Christian beat Melba 60-48 in a loser-out game Wednesday night. The Chargers of Meridian advanced to a state play-in game Saturday at Cascade, against the runner-up from the aforementioned Central Idaho League (District 1-2) tournament — which, after Wednesday’s games, could be either Orofino or Grangeville.

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 X (formerly Twitter) @CdAPressSports.