Greg Lee: Vikings have inside track in boys’ race

With two-thirds of the Inland Empire League boys basketball season completed, Coeur d’Alene finds itself atop the 5A heap.

The Vikings have a two-game lead over Lewiston and Lake City. If either hopes to catch Coeur d’Alene, both will need some help.

It wouldn’t bother LC or Post Falls if CdA finishes at the front of the 5A pack. That would mean the Region I tournament wouldn’t be held in Lewiston. If they were honest, that’s what the three Kootenai County teams want – anywhere but Lewiston.

CdA is 7-1, Lewiston and LC are 6-3 and Post Falls, at 3-6, has all but locked up the fourth seed.

For there not to be any doubts, CdA must win at least three of its final four games. Three of those games are road contests at LC (tonight) and Post Falls and Moscow next week. The Vikings’ final home game is Saturday against Lakeland, which is winless in league.

At best, CdA will win out and most likely capture the league title. A loss at LC tonight would mean the Vikings likely would have to win their final three to play host to regionals.

“I think we’re playing our best right now,” CdA coach Kent Leiss said. “We’ve won our last four games by double digits. So with a two-game lead and playing our best it would be a big disappointment if we didn’t close it out.”

Lewiston will most likely finish 9-3 with three games left against the 4A teams (Moscow, by the way, at 7-1, locked up the top seed for the 4A tourney long ago). LC has three home games remaining against CdA (tonight), Post Falls and Moscow. While the Timberwolves could finish 9-3, they most likely will drop at least one of those games and conclude at 8-4.

Would LC help its cause in the long run if it loses to CdA? Perhaps.

LC could have made the rubber game of the three-game regular season series against CdA quite intriguing had the T-Wolves beaten Moscow last Saturday. LC scored just two points in the second quarter at Moscow, and it found itself behind by 11 points in the fourth quarter. LC pulled even at 40, but Moscow held on for a 47-44 win.

CdA rallied in the first league game to beat LC 55-54. In the Fight for the Fish, the T-Wolves rallied to force overtime before prevailing 59-54.

The Vikings made some changes following that loss. The most obvious of which is they’re not pressing as frequently as they were because Leiss said his team was fouling too much.

I suspect that both teams have saved a new wrinkle or two for each other. Since there’s no guarantee that they’ll play again in the new double-elimination regional format, there’s no reason not to use all of the strategies they have tonight.

LC’s hopes of playing host to the regional tourney are slim at best. What the T-Wolves want to avoid, though, is finishing behind Lewiston in the final standings. Because if the two teams were to end up playing in the final regional game to decide which team advances to a play-in game, the finale would be played at the site of the highest-remaining seed.

Does “anywhere but Lewiston” sound familiar?

The team that could be forgotten in the whole scenario is Post Falls. So read my lips – don’t count out the Trojans.

They would like nothing more than to be overlooked going into the regional tourney.