Written by: Lucas Gebhart
The 5A Inland Empire Conference is as competitive as it’s ever been in recent years. Three of the conference’s four schools all finished the 2021 regular season tied for first place. Lake City was the only school not in the mix.
Despite winning two of their first four, the Timberwolves struggled down the stretch in 2021. Lake City lost its final four games of the regular season, including three straight to their 5A Inland Empire foes, finishing with a 0-3 conference record.
The other three schools, Coeur d’Alene, Lewiston and Post Falls, all finished with a 2-1 conference record. The three took turns beating each other while also a taking turn at Lake City in the final weeks of the season. They were blown out by Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls and lost by a touchdown to Lewiston.
2021 was the first time in six years that one of these four teams did not win the conference outright. In 2015, Coeur d’Alene and Lewiston shared the regular season title, but the Vikings have won the conference outright every year since. The last time they didn’t win it outright was in 2014, which is also Lake City’s last conference championship. Their last playoff appearance was in 2019.
This season, Lake City will look to get out to a fast start once again before diving into the 5A portion of the schedule.
Five of the first six are against 4A schools while the other game is against Raymond High School, a school located in Alberta, Canada not far from the U.S. border.
Lake City doesn’t play another 5A school until early October, but that doesn’t mean they have an easy schedule.
The Wolves will still play all three of Northern Idaho’s 4A schools in Lakeland, Moscow and Sandpoint, but they are also scheduled to play Bishop Kelly and Emmett, two schools that figure to make deep runs in Idaho’s 4A playoff bracket. Sandpoint is another early favorite to win the 4A title.
All of that is a precursor to the games that matter the most – the games against the other 5A Inland Empire schools. The problem is Lake City holds a 3-18 record against those schools since last winning the conference in 2014, a year they also went to the state semifinals.