THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Time will tell if new state baseball format is super

After a runner-up finish at state in 2023, Lake City High had its sights set on a state title this past season. 

But a heartbreaking extra-inning loss in the semifinals to eventual champion Owyhee ended those title hopes. And with no title to play for, the Timberwolves couldn’t bounce back the next day, falling in the third-place game and coming home trophy-less. 

“It makes it very hard to win the state tournament as the best team, to be honest,” Lake City athletic director Troy Anderson said of the current format, which features eight teams in single elimination with a losers bracket. 

For the next two years, there will be a mulligan of sorts for the state baseball tournament, which will be sponsored for the first time by the Idaho High School Activities Association.  

The IHSAA has long sanctioned high school baseball, but state tournaments were run by coaches or schools, closely following state rules, so the tourneys were similar to, say, basketball and soccer. 

In a pilot program for the next two years, in most classifications, 12 teams will compete in four three-team “super regionals”, with the four winners advancing to a four-team, double-elimination state tourney. 

“It’s a pretty controversial thing, but there’s a good number of people in the state who have pushed for it that would like to see it expand,” Anderson said. “If we’re ever going to see an expansion of any other state tournament, you might as well start with a new sport coming in, like baseball.”

THE NEW 6A, 5A and 3A classifications (currently 5A, 4A and 2A) will have 12-team super regionals. In 4A and 2A (formerly 3A and 1A), they’ll stay at eight teams because less teams compete at those levels, but there will still be four super regionals. 

In 6A (and in 5A), the District 1-2 (North Idaho) champion would host a super regional. In 6A, the North and East district champs would host, along with the top two teams in the West (Boise area); in 5A, each district champ from the four districts would host. 

MaxPreps rankings would then be used to determine the eight at-large teams, for a total field of 12. Each super regional would consist of a Tier 1 team (seeds 1-4), a Tier 2 team (seeds 5-8) and a Tier 3 team (seeds 9-12). 

The North being assured of hosting a super regional was big, Anderson said, since the fear was all the North teams would have to travel for a super regional and, if they won, travel again for the four-team state tournament. 

“I’ve got to hand it to Mike (Federico, of the IHSAA, who spearheaded the pilot program),” Anderson said. “They listened to us. A kicker for us, we’d like to see representation from the North in one of those (super regional) rounds. If you win districts, and you’re the best team coming out of the North, you’re going to be a host of a super regional. 

"If you win districts, you should have something. Whether you’re No. 8 MaxPreps or No. 2, winning districts should mean something.” 

At state in May, schools were shown a mockup of what such a tournament would have looked like this year. 

The good news — all four 5A teams (Lake City, Coeur d’Alene, Lewiston and Post Falls) would have qualified for a super regional, per MaxPreps. 

The downside — three of those teams (Lake City, Lewiston and Coeur d’Alene) would have ended up in the same super regional, hosted by Lake City. 

But hey, at least it’s a pathway to state. 

And since the IHSAA decided not to push back the state tournament a week, district tournaments will be a week earlier than usual, with super regionals being played the same week districts were in past years. 

“We will see how it works out,” Anderson said. “I’m optimistic that it could be good.” 

JEFF HIRONAKA is mostly well-known around these parts as once being an assistant men’s basketball coach at Washington State. 

But for one season (2020-21), he was head coach for the Genesis Prep boys basketball team, going 2-11 in a COVID-abbreviated season. 

He succeeded Marsell Colbert, whose run with the Jaguars resulted in two state titles and two third-place finishes at state. 

Recently, Hironaka was named head coach of the Kumamoto Volters, a Japanese professional basketball team which competes in the B.League.  

Kouto Tooyama, who was the head coach, is now the assistant coach. 

Hironaka was head coach at Seattle Pacific in the early 2000s, then was an assistant at WSU from 2009-13. After WSU, he was an assistant for three years at Portland State, then head coach for three seasons at Colorado Christian. 

Hironaka was an assistant women’s basketball coach at San Jose State this past season. 

Kumamoto is located on the island of Kyushu, near the southern tip of Japan. 

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.