THE FRONT ROW with JASON ELLIOTT: Making the dream a new reality

It's the kind of game that athletes dream of.

Win, and you get to play for a championship next week. 

Lose, and you get to start working on next year. 

A FEW teams have already punched their tickets to the state girls basketball tournament, with Coeur d’Alene (Tuesday) and Lakeside (Wednesday) advancing thus far. Timberlake, Priest River and Kootenai can join them later today with wins in play-in games. 

Timberlake didn’t find out its opponent for a 4A play-in until Friday night after Thursday’s Cole Valley Christian-Weiser game was postponed due to weather. 

Whoever wins (Weiser) will then have to drive to Prairie High in Cottonwood for a 1 p.m. PST start today.

Meanwhile Timberlake, which didn’t allow a point in the second half of Monday’s District 1 Tournament game, has been sitting and waiting patiently. 

Lakeside, with a 63-45 win over Wallace at North Idaho College, advanced to the state 2A tournament starting Thursday at Columbia High in Nampa. 

On Wednesday, Lakeside was led by junior Kyleigh Wolfe, who eclipsed the 1,000-point mark with 38 points against the Miners. 

“She is an absolute pleasure to coach,” Lakeside coach Chris Dohrman said. “She makes my job easy. She plays the game right as one of our best defenders and leads our team in assists. Her defense leads to easy baskets in transition.” 

Wolfe scored 39 points against Bonners Ferry on Feb. 6, just days before dropping 40 against Clark Fork on Feb. 3. 

“She is very aggressive on offense, which leads to all her scoring, but also gets to the foul line,” Dohrman said. “I didn’t expect Kyleigh to get to 1,000 points as a junior, but her recent scoring has put her over the top. She’s also an honor student and a great teammate. It’s just a lot of fun to see her excel.” 

AFTER WINS in three of its last four games, the North Idaho College men’s basketball team has a chance to make a move up the Scenic West Athletic Conference standings with a win today over Salt Lake. 

The first of the three wins came at Salt Lake on Jan. 25. 

Four teams are separated by two games for the final two spots. A win today could go a long way in cementing the Cardinals postseason hopes. 

NIC is 4-7 and fourth in the six-team conference, with Colorado Northwestern and Utah State-Eastern, currently tied for last, both at 3-8. 

Colorado Northwestern (17-9, 3-8) upset NIC 84-81 on Jan. 23 in Rangely, Colo. The Cardinals won the first game of the year between the teams 78-76 in overtime on Jan. 9. 

“It was a grudge match,” NIC men's coach Corey Symons said. “We’ve had it on the calendar and were trying to get this one back. The guys were just mentally ready to play.” 

LOOKING OUTSIDE on Friday, it’s hard to imagine that baseball season is quickly approaching, but indeed the Seattle Mariners are going through workouts in Arizona as we speak. 

To be honest, it might be a little tough to get excited for this season, with the mix of no big-name free agent signings and the fear that the team will once again fall short. 

Yeah, maybe. 

Seattle didn’t quite help its cause last year, building a nice lead in the American League West, then just as quickly seeing it implode after the losses started to pile up without stars Julio Rodriguez and J.P. Crawford in the lineup. 

Unless something changes between now and March, it appears that the Mariners are going to run the same lineup out on a daily basis from last year, with the exception of those pieces that have since been shipped out of town. 

Let’s face it, if Seattle is going to live up to those lofty expectations — and they can with that pitching staff — it’s going to come down to being able to hit the ball. 

No, nobody’s expecting this team to score seven or eight runs a game, but it might be nice if they can get four to five a night, right? 

Honestly, this season is going to come down to Rodriguez and how he starts the season. 

If he can get going a little quicker than his previous two seasons, he can carry this team. 

Those struggles that were had by Cal Raleigh and Randy Arozarena last season will hopefully be long gone as both chase new contracts. 

Stranger things have happened with this team in recent years. 

It’s just time to take that next step. 

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for The Press. He can be reached by telephone at 208-664-8176, Ext. 1206 or via email at jelliott@cdapress.com. Follow him on ‘X’, formerly Twitter @JECdAPress.