Panhandle Preps Ready To Kick Off Fall Sports Season

A pair of preseason football and volleyball jamborees to benefit the Youth Endowment Fund and six season-opening football games highlight the first North Idaho high school athletic schedule of the 1995-96 season.

Four Kootenai County volleyball teams - Post Falls, Coeur d’Alene, Lake City and Lakeland - meet Thursday night at Post Falls High School.

Teams will play each other in modified matches beginning at 6. The scrimmages consist of one game to 11 points and a second game that will be rally scored.

Admission is $3 for adults, $2 for students. Proceeds go into the fund to help schools pay travels costs to state activities.

A football jamboree involving Post Falls, Lakeland, Sandpoint, Coeur d’Alene and Lake City will be held Friday night at Viking Field.

Each team is allowed to play an equivalent of a full game in four 15-minute controlled scrimmages. Action begins at 7:30.

Admission is $4 adults, $2 students. Proceeds go to the travel fund.

Eight area football teams get a jump on the season in opening games this weekend.

Four of the five North Star eight-man teams dive into league play Friday. Clark Fork visits Falls Christian Academy in Post Falls and Lakeside is at Kootenai.

Both begin at 3:30 p.m.

Four games are scheduled Saturday. At 1 p.m., Orofino visits Priest River while Lapwai is at Kellogg. At 7:30, Grangeville goes to St. Maries and Wallace plays at Potlatch.

Bonners Ferry will host a season-opening cross country meet Saturday at 10 a.m.

Several volleyball teams open Tuesday.

A-2 power St. Maries, which saw its streak of 10 straight state titles snapped last year, will meet Coeur d’Alene and Lake City in non-league matches at Viking Gym. LC plays St. Maries at 6 followed by CdA and St. Maries at 7:30.

Elsewhere, Post Falls is at Lakeland, Priest River treks to Kellogg, North Idaho Christian of Hayden Lake goes to Falls Christian in Post Falls, Lakeside is at Potlatch and Mullan visits Wallace.

Several others open their seasons two days later.

Volleyball

Spokane will pay tribute to the centennial celebration of volleyball on Oct. 1 at the new Veterans Memorial Arena as the USA men’s team will take on Japan and the USA women’s team plays Canada in “The Stars and Spikes Road to Atlanta Tour.”

The action will start at 6 p.m.

Rival coaches have once again selected University of Idaho as the favorite to win the Big Sky Conference championship.

Under seventh-year head coach Tom Hilbert, this is the third time in as many years the Vandals have been selected as the preseason favorite. Idaho earned the maximum seven first-place votes - coaches couldn’t vote for their own team - for a total of 49 points.

The Vandals finished 1994 with a 13-1 Big Sky record and were 31-2 overall. They defeated Central Florida in the first round of the NCAA Tournament before losing to nationally ranked Hawaii in the second round.

Following Idaho in this year’s poll are Weber State (one first-place vote), 40 points; Montana, 33; Montana State, 26; Idaho State, 25; Boise State, 20; Northern Arizona, 19; and Eastern Washington, 12.

Two coaches picked Eastern to finish fourth or fifth, while five picked them to finish last.

Football

Washington State University and the Spokane Youth Sports Association will conduct a clinic Saturday at the SYSA North Complex from 4-6 p.m.

The clinic is free for fifth- through eighth-graders. NCAA rules prohibit anyone above the eighth grade from participating.

“We are trying to re-establish our presence with the youth in Spokane,” said WSU coach Mike Price. “We want to give them good, positive role models and make them Cougars fans.”

Officials expect 400 youngsters. All members of the WSU football team are expected to help teach them drills and basic skills.

WSU will stage a game-style scrimmage tonight at 8 in Pullman in preparation for its Sept. 2 season opener at Pittsburgh.

The scrimmage will be held under the lights to simulate expected conditions at Pitt, where the game will start at 7 p.m. EDT.

, DataTimes