Hanich, CdA on move

The Coeur d’Alene High boys soccer team’s mantra seems to be “promise less, deliver more.”

After coming out of nowhere to finish second in the State 5A tournament a year ago, the Vikings (8-2-1 overall, 6-0-1 Inland Empire League) and senior midfielder Joe Hanich have picked up where they left off.

Huge wins over Sandpoint – which CdA hadn’t beaten in five years – and Lake City have the Viks thinking of another deep postseason run.

Even if others around the IEL don’t share the sentiment.

“It’s kind of weird, because we have high expectations,” Hanich said of the team, which has successfully mixed in several underclassmen. “But I don’t think really all that many people think we’re going to do that well at state. Around the state, people might think that we will because of how we did last year. But locally, I don’t know that anybody thinks we’re at that level.”

Last week’s success, however, may change all that.

“That win over Sandpoint was huge,” Hanich said of the 2-1 decision, which avenged a season-opening 1-0 loss. “Beating Lake City 5-1 gave us momentum going in and beating Sandpoint (gave) us even more.

“When we click, and have everything going, I don’t know if we can be beaten.”

CdA has a rematch against LC next Thursday at CdA.

One question Hanich can’t answer is whether the Viks are peaking too early.

“I can’t tell right now – at all,” he said. “We played Post Falls (Tuesday), and we didn’t play our best – we beat ‘em 3-1, but we could have scored a lot more.”

If CdA is to repeat or improve on last season, Hanich said a lot of the burden will be on some less-experienced players.

“I don’t know if we’re going to get the same burst that we had last year,” Hanich said. “We only have six seniors back from that team, but we also started off better this year. … The young guys are definitely going to have to step it up if we’re going to go all the way.”

Getting them to step it up is one of Hanich’s biggest responsibilities.

“(First-year coach Eric Louis) expects me to set the tempo at the beginning of the game and to get the team going right at the start,” said Hanich, who plans on playing two years at North Idaho College before moving to a larger school. “I’ve pretty much done that most of my soccer career. I’m a loud talker, so I pretty much talk to everybody. But I also lead by example.”