THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Travis, Triston, tiers ... and a funky new baseball format
Mark Nelke
After two straight trips to state, including an appearance in the 5A title game in 2023, the Lake City Timberwolves fielded a lot of new faces this year.
But so far, the results have been the same. Last week Lake City won the district title for the third year in a row, and the Timberwolves will host a three-team play-in series this Friday and Saturday, with the winner advancing to the four-team double-elimination state tournament next weekend in Boise.
“Since we graduated all those seniors, we’re the underdogs this year,” said Lake City senior shortstop Travis Usdrowski, one of the few veterans remaining from the last two T-Wolf teams. “Let’s surprise people.
“Our record (13-8) doesn’t mean anything,” he added. “We’ve got heart, and we’ve got chemistry ... we move on (from adversity).”
Lake City, the No. 7 seed, plays No. 9 Highland (18-9) on Friday at 1 p.m. The winner plays No. 4 seed Coeur d’Alene (16-4) at 4.
IF YOU’VE been around awhile, you might see the last name Usdrowski and think of Kootenai High in Harrison Flats.
The Usdrowski family lives at Arrow Point, some 30 minutes from Coeur d’Alene, off Highway 97 on the way to Harrison.
Travis said his parents went to Kootenai High in Harrison Flats, so the three boys went there as well, at least at the start.
The family actually lived just inside the Coeur d’Alene School District zone, so the kids needed a waiver each year to attend school at Kootenai, which was actually some 15 minutes farther away than going to school in Coeur d’Alene.
Triston graduated from Kootenai High in 2019, Jarrett in 2021.
Travis played baseball in Harrison since T-ball, “then I made the transition in fifth grade to Coeur d’Alene,” where he’s been attending schools since.
Travis has signed to play baseball at Centralia (Wash.) College.
COEUR d’ALENE WAS as surprised as anyone to find out Sunday morning it didn’t have to travel for its play-in series this weekend.
Turns out there was a formula for that.
When the IHSAA baseball committee seeded the four play-in series in 6A, they took the 12 qualifying teams, used their MaxPreps rankings, and put the top four teams in Tier 1, the next four in Tier 2, and the last four in Tier 3.
Each play-in series site got a Tier 1, a Tier 2 and a Tier 3 team.
“The committee wanted to make sure the tournament was set up to reward the best teams throughout the season, and also reward those teams who won their district tournaments by letting them host sites,” said Mike Federico, assistant executive director of the IHSAA.
“Some of the committee felt the district tournaments were losing their luster when you had a bigger district, because so many teams got to go. If two teams got to go, the district championship didn’t matter because we were seeding them in MaxPreps anyway. So bringing back some of the excitement of the district tournament was part of the process of, let’s make sure they get a reward for winning their district, which is the ability to host.”
The host teams were No. 1 Owyhee, No. 2 Middleton, No. 7 Lake City and No. 11 Madison.
The committee also wanted to protect the higher seeds.
So Owyhee got the lowest-ranked Tier 2 and Tier 3 teams in its bracket — No. 8 Eagle and No. 12 Capital.
Middleton got the next-lowest Tier 2 and Tier 3 teams in its bracket — No. 6 Centennial and No. 10 Ridgevue.
Rocky Mountain, ranked No. 3 by MaxPreps, was sent to the site with the lowest-ranked host — No. 11 Madison. No. 5 Mountain View is the other team headed to Rexburg.
Coeur d’Alene, ranked No. 4 and the last remaining Tier 1 team, then went to the next-lowest host site — which turned out to be No. 7 Lake City. No. 9 Highland is the other team coming to Coeur d’Alene.
“We did everything we could to protect the higher seed,” Federico said. “This format was set up to get the best teams at state, and the best teams the best chance to advance.”
One thing’s for sure — there is a buzz created by this new format, and no doubt folks interested in changing the way state basketball is run in Idaho will be looking at this format — which is in the first year of a two-year trial run — to see if some iteration of it might work in hoops.
Federico said it was important for a team in the North and a team in the East to be able to host a play-in series, in addition to the two host sites in the Boise area.
There’s already some potential headaches — hotels in Moscow and Lewiston are hard to come by, due to college graduations. And then there’s the travel — an issue in a spread-out state like Idaho.
Before it learned it was staying in town, Coeur d’Alene was concerned about traveling either to eastern Idaho or the Boise area this week, then returning to the Boise area next week if it won its play-in series.
If Highland wins this weekend at the North Qualifier at Lake City, then the Rams trek back home to Pocatello, then head to Boise a few days later.
In the old eight-team state format, a team was eliminated from championship contention with a loss in either of the first two rounds, though they could play for a trophy.
But with the new double-elimination format this weekend and next, no one is done until they lose twice.
“Every game from here on out is a path to the championship game,” Federico said. “Every game is a game that counts toward the championship, not just a trophy.”
Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 1205, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @CdAPressSports.