Vikings Fatten Up By Sweeping Lake City

Forgive Coeur d’Alene High School baseball coach Paul Mather for feeling like the proverbial fat rat in a cheese factory.

Mather’s Vikings concluded regular-season play Thursday with their second Inland Empire League sweep of crosstown rival Lake City, thumping the Timberwolves 10-0 in a run-rule opener and 11-2 in the finale.

Coeur d’Alene (16-7 overall, 10-16 in league) secured no worse than second and the accompanying seed into the A-1 Region I Tournament next week. The Vikings will play at least one more game at home.

And speaking of home, the victories Thursday represented the Viks’ first league wins on their new field. Going into the doubleheader, CdA was 1-5 - its lone win coming against A-3 Wallace.

The primary reason Mather was smiling, though, is the Viks are done until a first-round regional opener Tuesday. The other four league teams have final doubleheaders Saturday.

And with a little help, the Viks could land the league championship and top regional seed.

Defending state champion Lewiston took a big step toward capturing the league crown Thursday, sweeping visiting Sandpoint 7-1 and 8-2.

Lewiston moved to 11-11, 9-4, while Sandpoint fell to 9-10, 5-6.

Lewiston and Sandpoint turn-around and meet Saturday at Sandpoint. Lewiston needs just a split to take league, but CdA would earn the championship if Sandpoint sweeps.

Because some league games postponed because of weather couldn’t be made up this week, league officials decided to use league winning percentage to determine regional seeding.

“We’re really in pretty good shape,” Mather said, smiling of course. The extra time off will allow CdA’s top pitchers, Mark Scates and Jesse Hoorelbeke, to be well rested for regionals.

Interestingly, CdA was 4-0 against LC (5-13, 3-9) and 6-6 versus the rest of the league. After opening league 5-1, CdA went through a 2-4 stretch in the middle. The Viks finished 3-1 this week - and Mather believes his team is returning to early form.

“We had the hot start, the slump in the middle and now we’re playing pretty well again,” he said. “We faced their (T-Wolves’) top two pitchers and hit the ball well today. That was good to see.”

The Viks staked Scates to an 8-0 lead with a seven-run outburst in the second inning of the opener. David Goodwin and Ben Johnston had run-scoring hits in the inning.

In the bottom of the seventh, Todd Hughes ended the game early with a line-drive homer over the center-field fence.

In the first inning of the nightcap, Hoorelbeke, the leading hitter in North Idaho at .614, knocked in three runs with a double. CdA added four more runs in the seventh, three of which came on Joe Wagner’s towering home run that carried an estimated 400 feet to over the left-center field fence.

LC will meet either Post Falls or Sandpoint Monday in a loser-out playoff to determine the fourth and final seed to regionals.

At Lewiston, the Bengals received complete-game pitching efforts from Ryan Heitman and Jeff Wendt to sweep Sandpoint.

Heitman allowed five hits and struck out five in the opener and Wendt, a sophomore, followed with a three-hitter and six strikeouts.

Lewiston’s top pitcher, Lysandro Perez, who has been out a month with arm problems, was available for relief duty Thursday. He’s expected to be ready for the regional tourney next week.

The Bengals scored five runs in the second inning of the opener to jump on top. In the nightcap, they pulled away after leading 3-2 through two innings with a pair of runs in the fourth and fifth innings.

Softball

Post Falls completed Inland Empire League play by splitting with Lewiston at Lewiston.

The Bengals (4-13, 2-9) shut out the Trojans (3-13, 3-11) 10-0 in the opener before Post Falls salvaged the split, 10-5.

Elizabeth Twidt had four hits and scored three runs for Post Falls.

Bonners Ferry traveled to Montana and left in a hurry after getting hammered 13-0, 20-0 by Libby in a pair of non-league games.

Intermountain League champion Lakeland continued to roll with an 8-4 win over Moscow at Moscow Wednesday.

Lakeland (14-2, 11-1) was led by Jessica McBride, who went 3 for 4 with two RBI.

Soccer

Lake City, which had wrapped up the North Idaho League championship earlier in the week, finished league undefeated with a 3-0 victory over visiting Sandpoint.

LC (12-1, 10-0) played its first match on its new field at the Irma Anderl Complex. Will Scott scored two goals and Mike Thompson had one.

Coeur d’Alene completed regular-season play with a 4-0 NIL victory at Lewiston.

The Viks (9-6-1, 5-4-1) got goals from Darren Baune, Ben Davis, Bojan Torbica and Joel Grabenstein scored goals.

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