THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Crossover games mattered in the IEL this year

The Inland Empire League is one big league — but also, two smaller leagues. 

These days, there are three 6A teams (Coeur d’Alene, Lake City and Post Falls), and four 5A teams (Lakeland, Sandpoint, Moscow and Lewiston) in the IEL. 

In every team sport but football, all 6A and 5A teams play each other during the regular season, then go their separate ways for their respective district or regional tournaments. 

PART OF it is a scheduling convenience — more of these games mean fewer other games athletic directors need to find to fill their teams’ schedules. 

And in North Idaho, sometimes it's hard to find nonleague games — at least, close to home. 

Another reason is to create more “meaningful” games during the regular season — the smaller the league, the fewer league games. 

Toward that end, IEL officials created a league setup where ALL league games counted toward postseason seeding — meaning a game between a 6A and 5A team carried just as much weight as one between two 6A schools, or two 5A squads. 

As a compromise for coaches/schools that might not have wanted to play teams in the other division, the 6A schools play the 5As just once, whereas the 6As play each other twice, and the 5As play each other twice. 

USUALLY, THESE crossover games don’t make a difference, as the 6A teams usually beat the 5A teams, so the crossover games tend to cancel out. But this year these games were huge, especially in basketball.

In girls basketball, Lakeland swept Sandpoint in IEL play. Normally that would lead to Lakeland being the higher seed to regionals. 

But this year, Sandpoint beat a pair of 6A schools (Lake City and Post Falls), which Lakeland lost to. Lakeland also lost at home to fellow 5A Moscow, which also proved to be big. 

Since Sandpoint finished 6-3 in the combined league, and Lakeland was 5-4, Sandpoint hosted the best-of-3 championship series last week, and ended up sweeping Lakeland — the team that had swept Sandpoint during the regular season. 

Same with the boys. 

Post Falls beat Lake City by five points, and Lake City beat Post Falls by two points.  

All other things being equal, that would have given Post Falls the top seed to the 6A District 1 tournament, via the point differential tiebreaker. 

But ... 

Enter Lewiston. 

SO THAT no team received a scheduling advantage because they played a crossover a game at home, and the other teams in their division had to travel, all teams in each division played a similar crossover schedule.  

This year, the 6A schools traveled to the 5A schools in boys basketball (the 5A girls traveled to the 6A schools in girls basketball). 

So, in boys basketball, 6A teams Coeur d’Alene, Lake City and Post Falls all traveled to 5A Lewiston. 

Coeur d’Alene and Lake City each won at Lewiston. But Post Falls lost by two at Lewiston, which you’d think normally wouldn’t matter — it was a 6A vs. 5A game, right? 

But since they all counted, the ramifications of that loss for Post Falls were huge. 

With a win, Post Falls would have been the top seed to districts, and hosted Game 1 (and Game 3) in the best-of-3 series for the district title. 

But the Trojans’ loss gave Lake City the top seed, and put Post Falls in a loser-out game at home vs. Coeur d’Alene on Wednesday night in the first round of districts. 

The difference — the loser in the best-of-3 series for the district title can still get to state via a play-in game. 

The loser of Wednesday’s game was done for the season. 

AS AN aside, the end of that second Post Falls-Lake City boys game might have looked a little confusing, if you weren’t aware of the circumstances. 

Since Post Falls won the earlier meeting by five points, Lake City had to win by six to earn the tiebreaker over the Trojans. 

With Lake City leading by two points and with the ball late, normally the Timberwolves would try to work the clock to protect their league. 

But instead, Lake City worked to shoot a 3-pointer, even with the lead, to try to win by at least five, and take their chances. 

Post Falls figured it was in good shape if it lost, as long as it was by less than five points. 

That led to the weird play at the end of the game — Lake City up by two, with the ball under the Post Falls basket with less than a second remaining.  

The T-Wolves tried to run a lob play — a terrific idea in hindsight — to try to score a basket FOR POST FALLS. That would have tied the game and forced overtime, and given Lake City a chance to win by five or more. 

As it turned out, the lob play didn’t work, but it was still a great idea. 

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.