All about the journey — Four Coeur d’Alene High seniors, longtime basketball teammates, help Vikings qualify for state for first time since 2012

By MARK NELKE

Sports editor

Trey Nipp, the guard who can still shoot it, is just glad to be here.

Gunner Larson, the defensive stopper with the big dreams, experienced a whole different side of the world over the summer.

Logan Orchard, the point guard who can score and defend, makes the engine run smoothly.

And Max Entzi, the big man off the bench, just might be the glue that holds all this together.

The four seniors on the Coeur d’Alene High boys basketball team, headed to state for the first time since 2012, have played together for years, building for this moment.

Nipp and Orchard have played together since parks and rec basketball, before they were old enough to play club ball.

Larson and Entzi joined the two in AAU ball, around the fifth grade.

And on they played.

“I just remember Keith (Orchard), Logan’s dad, and Ryan (Nipp, Trey’s dad and a former Viking assistant coach), they would always say, ‘You guys have potential,’” Larson said. “They would always tell us, ‘Work hard now so you can go to state when you’re at CHS.’ And I always remembered that. It seemed like a joke at the time, something that wasn’t really relevant, but then, our JV year, they told us the same thing, and we just finally did it.”

“I remember one time we qualified for AAU state, for our NIE (North Idaho Elite) team for Washington,” Orchard said. “That was huge for us, even though we kinda got smacked over there. But that kinda planted a seed that we could do something eventually, once we got older and bigger and better.”

Last Tuesday, Coeur d’Alene won its first regional title since 2011, to qualify for this week’s state tournament at the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa. Through the luck of the MaxPreps draw, the second-seeded Vikings (20-3) will face city rival Lake City (16-9) in a first-round game Thursday at 4 p.m. PST.

“That (qualifying for state) was definitely something that I thought of, that I wanted to achieve before leaving,” Entzi said. “I’m glad that we were finally able to accomplish it.”

Orchard (10.8 points per game, 6.3 rebounds, 6.2 assists, 2.4 steals) and Larson (7.2 ppg) are in their third year on the varsity, after playing on the JV as freshmen. Entzi (6.3 ppg, 3 rebounds) is in his second year on varsity. Nipp (13 3-pointers) is in his first year on varsity — but that comes with an asterisk.

“It’s the first group I’ve seen from beginning to end,” fourth-year Coeur d’Alene coach Jon Adams said of his seniors. “I’ve seen them when they were still in eighth grade, coming in to be freshmen. When you have kids all the way through, you get to see their growth all the way through, you get to see what what’s possible with them, you get to see their highs, their lows … and to see them finish this way, undefeated at home, undefeated in league, league title, first time to state in 12 years, it’s just a special moment, because I see how much it means to these guys … to see them put all this dedication in, it just warms my heart.”

COEUR d’ALENE nearly ended the state tourney drought two years ago, but lost to defending champion Meridian in a state play-in game at Grangeville. Still, the Vikings were encouraged.

But last year, after losing in the regional championship game to Lake City, Coeur d’Alene was eliminated by Lewiston — a team they had beaten in their first three meetings — in the regional second-place game, one game short of the play-in game.

The Vikings were bummed, but encouraged by the group that would be returning this season.

“We always knew we always had a team that could compete in state, and be one of the best teams in state,” Orchard said. “Especially this year, it all came together.”

Coeur d’Alene brings a 10-game winning streak into state.

“I think this is the closest group we’ve had,” Entzi said. “We’re all pretty tight.”

Adams and Entzi seemed to hit it off right away.

“I’ve always said, Max and I have a very special bond,” Adams said. “I think we have similar senses of humor, we always seem to gravitate toward each other, on the road, talking about stuff. Max is the most unselfish guy; he’s singular in his focus; he wants to win, whether he’s starting, whether he’s scoring points — whatever he needs to do, Max will do it. It’s really going to hurt to see Max leave because he’s such a positive influence on the program.”

“I think I’m a pretty open-minded person,” Entzi said. “I like to look at things in multiple different views, and see from other people’s perspective. I think Jon does the same, and that’s why we kind of connect. We always seem to be laughing at the same stuff.”

Adams has often said Orchard is a coach on the floor — an extension of the head coach.

“What more can you say about Logan?” Adams said. “He just wills things like this to happen — not just winning a league championship, he wills the team to be a team, to come together in moments. He has a very special way of getting everybody on the same page, makes sure there’s a common goal. It’s going to be really hard without him, because he is such an extension of me on the floor, and I give him so much credit for four years of bringing all these kids together like this.”

TREY NIPP decided he wanted to ride his bicycle to school one day in May, when he was a sixth-grader at Woodland Middle School.

He was pedaling through Coeur d’Alene Place, on one of the side streets, almost to school, when a car coming from his left slammed into his left side, knocking him off his bike. He suffered a broken femur and broken tibia.

“I just landed on the road,” Trey recalled. “If I didn’t have my backpack on, I probably wouldn’t be alive, because I didn’t have a helmet on. So I landed on my backpack, and I was looking around … I tried to get up and my leg was like out here (pointing to the left). I just laid back down.”

Then, in April of his freshman year, at an AAU tournament in Boise, he suffered a dislocated left knee.

While treating that injury, doctors discovered Trey’s broken leg was not healing properly (it was growing inward), so they had to re-break and re-set the leg).

Trey didn’t play high school ball as a sophomore and junior (though he played parks and rec ball last year). He still played golf all four years on the Viking varsity team, including at state as a freshman shortly after his dislocated knee, sporting a bulky brace on his knee.

“After my leg straightened out I had to reconstruct my swing,” Trey said. “It was tough to fix my swing my sophomore year, hard to walk on my freshman year, but junior and senior year, I was 100 percent. It felt good.”

“Injuries, more than anything, are mental,” said Orchard, whose junior season was cut short by a broken right thumb. “Being able to overcome an injury is, even when you’re healed, is in your brain still. So for him to come back and do that is impressive.”

“There’s nothing else you can feel but just bad for him,” Entzi said. “I don’t know how that much stuff happens to you … it’s just unlucky moments, I feel like. The amount of work that you put in to get back to being able to play, to be normal again, is pretty cool to see.”

Trey was determined to rejoin his longtime basketball buddies for his senior season, and gives the team a spark off the bench.

In a game the Vikings were playing in the Tarkanian Classic in Las Vegas in December, Nipp took an elbow to the mouth. His tooth went through his lip, the blood started flowing. 

After coming out briefly to pull the tooth back out of his lip and stop the bleeding, Nipp went right back into the game. 

“I feel really terrible for him, because of how unfortunate it is, with all of his injuries,” Orchard said. “But I’m glad he is resilient and played again. I was trying to get him to play all of last year. We needed him this year. I’m glad he did (play), because he’s a good part of this team, and we all enjoy him here.”

The Adamses and the Nipps have been family friends for years.

“I’ve got a special part of me that’s just happy to see him being a part of this, and contributing, and being back out, healthy and happy,” Jon said of Trey.

LAST SUMMER, Gunner Larson’s mom signed him up for a two-and-a-half week humanitarian trip to Fiji, through an organization called HXP (Humanitarian Experience). 

Larson was part of a group of 18 teenagers, mostly from Utah but some from elsewhere in the country, who traveled to a small island in Fiji called Taveuni.

“We built a secondary school for kids in Fiji who didn’t have opportunities for a secondary education,” Gunner recalled. “They’re really only required to go to school first through fifth grade, and there’s not really strict enforcement on that, but they really value education there. We helped finish out a school. The trip is six rotations of two-and-a-half weeks, so there’s six different groups that go, and we were the ones that finished it off. There was a Helping Building team (similar to the building “pros” with Habitat for Humanity), but basically it was high school kids age 16 to 19 doing everything from, dig the foundation to put in the final lights.”

The teenagers were allowed to bring their phones to Fiji, but they couldn’t use them when they were there — they were placed in a bag.

“It was actually super nice to disconnect, and meet new friends,” Gunner said. “I don’t ever think I missed my phone one time.”

The trip took place in late July and early August.

“Thinking about it makes me emotional,” Gunner said. “Those people basically have nothing, and they’re the kindest people that I’ve met in my entire life. Going to church with them on Sunday, some kid in our group asked them how come they were so happy, and how they were able to be so generous.

“They said when you have nothing, you’re basically able to give everything. They feel like they have nothing to lose, so as long as they can make you happy, then they’re fulfilled. That was just super eye-opening, seeing these people live in sheet-metal houses, give you everything they have.”

Larson missed the early part of this season with an ankle injury. But his presence was immediately felt upon his return, especially on defense — though he can score as well.

“Gunner is one of the more interesting people we have,” Adams said. “You know that Gunner has got big aspirations way beyond high school basketball. I’m going to miss Gunner a lot.”

FOR THE four seniors and longtime basketball buddies, how will the journey end this week?

“I think we’re all very hopeful, and we’re confident, even though it’s our first time going to state for any of us,” Orchard said. “Anything can happen, just take it one game at a time, and play with confidence.”

    Courtesy photo The four seniors on this year's state-bound Coeur d'Alene High boys basketball team have played together for years. Here's a picture of them in May 2017, when they played for the North Idaho Elite AAU program. In front are Jayce Swanson and Caden Symons, and back row from left, Trey Nipp, Max Entzi, Logan Orchard, Gavin Trost, Rhys Williams and Gunner Larson.