Good weather will arrive in time for break
How’s this for cruel irony? The warmest weather in North Idaho since the spring sports season began is in the forecast for late next week.
Unfortunately, it will be spring break, and most of the area teams will be, well, on break. As I write this (early Wednesday afternoon), quarter-size snowflakes are falling. Yikes.
I bring up the weather for a second straight week because it continues to be a talking point. By the way, the annual Christina Finney Co-Ed Relays at Post Falls that were scheduled for today have been postponed to April 15 because of anticipated poor weather.
Another state classification
I’m tempted to put this in the be-careful-what-you-wish-for file. At least that’s the way it could play out for North Star League schools.
Beginning in 2008-09, the 1A classification will split into two – 1A Division I and 1A Division II – in boys and girls basketball and volleyball as it is in football. It will be akin to what the Washington Interscholastic Athletic Association did a couple of years back with the old B classification (2B and 1B).
Instead of holding one 16-team state tournament, two eight-team tournaments will be held. It will save the state-qualifying schools money since the tournaments will need one less day to be decided than the 16-team format. It also means students will spend more time in school.
The NSL, however, will lose its two state berths. The District I tournament will be mothballed in the aforementioned sports.
Two of the NSL’s three 1A Division II schools – Mullan, Kootenai and Clark Fork – will combine with two of four Whitepine League schools in District II to determine one state berth. The runner-up will advance to a play-in game with a District III team to determine another state berth.
Wallace and Lakeside, the NSL’s two 1A Division I schools, won’t participate in a district tournament. The schools’ boys and girls basketball and volleyball teams will play each other in a playoff with the winner advancing to face the District II third-place team to determine a state berth. The top two District II tournament finishers earn state berths.
Forty-eight of the 57 1A superintendents responded to a survey asking if they supported splitting 1A into two divisions. They opposed it 28-20. Mullan Superintendent Robin Stanley, an Idaho High School Activities Association board member, spearheaded the move to split up 1A. The proposal passed by unanimous vote among the IHSAA board members.
Stanley’s school, it should be noted, is one of the smallest in 1A. Now Mullan doesn’t have to go head to head with Wallace, which has more than three times Mullan’s enrollment, for state berths.
Wallace athletic director Dave Rounds said NSL schools voted recently to continue as a league, even though regular-season play will have no bearing on which teams, if any, earn state berths. The NSL will crown a league champ and name all-league teams as a way to honor their athletes.
Rounds, who is the Miners’ head football coach, adamantly opposes splitting up 1A in the other sports.
“It wipes out our district tournaments,” Rounds said. “I don’t see a benefit in it at all for our schools. I don’t think it was the right decision, but we’ll have to live with it.”
Softball predictions
5A CdA and LC have owned the IEL over the years. That may not change, but those teams won’t be handed anything this year. Still, CdA is the team to beat until proven otherwise. See CdA’s 2-0 win over LC on Tuesday.
Here’s how I see the 5A teams finishing: 1) CdA; 2) LC; 3) Post Falls; 4) Lewiston.
In 4A, it will be: 1) Moscow; 2) Lakeland; 3) Sandpoint.
In the Intermountain League, no school can match what Timberlake has done the last five years. Here’s how I see league playing out: 1) Timberlake; 2) Kellogg; 3) St. Maries; 4) Priest River; 5) Bonners Ferry.