Lucas Gebhart
Sports Editor
The Big Picture:
We’ll start with the basics.
Idaho State is in the Big Sky Conference for all its athletics. Idaho State, Southern Utah, Northern Arizona, Montana, Montana State, Eastern Washington, Northern Colorado, Portland State, Sacramento State and Weber State are in the Big Sky for all its athletics and Cal Davis and Cal Poly are in the Big Sky for football only. The University of Idaho is in the Big Sky for every sport except for football and North Dakota is in the Big Sky for every sport except for hockey.
But all of that is soon to change.
Currently, there are 13 football team in the Big Sky, but North Dakota is going to bolt to the Missouri Valley Conference for football in 2020 and join the Summit League for all other sports except football and hockey, starting in 2018-19.
Idaho [UoI or ISU?] decided it was going to make the move down to the Big Sky for football in 2019, so for one season, there will be 14 teams in the Big Sky for football, but 11 for basketball and seven for softball – there are only eight teams in the Big Sky that have softball programs.
The Athletic Director for Idaho State is Jeff Tingey and this summer he signed a two-year extension on his contract, ensuring his place as head of the Idaho State athletic department through June of 2019.
Tingey has been at the helm since 2009 and his highlight orchestrations include a new football practice facility, new softball locker rooms, a new scoreboard and lighting in Holt Arena – were both football and most men’s basketball home games take place – and plans for a new $20 million basketball arena.
That’s a breakdown of what is happening within the conference and the big picture of what Idaho State athletics currently looks like, so now let’s breakdown the recent history of each athletic program and what we might come to expect for the upcoming season.
Football:
Head Coach: Rob Phenicie – 1st season.
2016 Record: 2-9
The Take: The Bengals went 8-4 in 2014 and arguably got snubbed from the FCS playoffs behind quarterback Justin Arias who rewrote the Idaho State record books.
Since then, Idaho State has won four games, two of which were to Division II schools, which was one of many moving parts into the decision to ask former head coach Mike Kramer to retire in March of last year.
The man Tingey hired to replace Kramer was almost as complicated as how he let his former football coach go.
Rob Phenicie left Pocatello for Northern Iowa to coach receivers. After being promoted to offensive coordinator, Matt Troxel was the offensive coordinator for the Bengals last year, then took an offensive assistant position at Montana; but has returned to ISU in his previous position for this year.
The announcement of Kramer’s retirement and Tingey’s replace for him came out in the same press release. Days later, Troxel returned to assume his former position of offensive coordinator.
The Bengals will be led by redshirt junior quarterback Tanner Gueller, will return most of last years’ injury riddled offensive line and return the star of last years’ defense with linebacker Mario Jenkins.
Since the coaching change happened four days before spring football was set to begin and the new head coach was the old offensive coach, ISU will run the same spread system it did under Kramer but will reportedly ditch the west coast style and take more shots down the field.
I don’t exactly know what to expect this year from the football team because the word on the street is Kramer was not well liked by his players and that may have led to his early retirement, meaning the team could have new life under Phenicie. I could see Idaho State winning one game this year, but I could also see six.
Volleyball
Head Coach: Rick Reynolds – 3rd season.
2016 Record: 16-15
The Take: Chad Teichert made Idaho State’s volleyball program relevant and since his resignation in April of 2015, third year head coach Rick Reynolds has maintained the winning tradition that Teichert established in his eight seasons in Pocatello.
The Bengals have won over 20 matches four times out of the last five seasons and the last time Idaho State finished below .500 was 2009.
In Reynolds’ first season, the Bengals won 23 games and fell to Northern Arizona in the championship match during the conference tournament and had four players received All-Big Sky honors.
Reynolds then followed up his championship run by winning another 16 matches last season and finishing well over .500 in conference play. However, instead of the championship match, Idaho State fell in semifinals to North Dakota and three, not four received All-Big Sky honors.
Now entering his third season, Reynolds has a team that is mostly, but not fully, all his recruits and will look to take the next step in winning the Big Sky, something that has not happened since 2013.
I see no reason why this team should not be able to at least be in the conversation for a conference title.
Soccer
Head Coach: Allison Gibson – 12th season.
2016 Season: 7-13
The Take: Everybody wrote Idaho State’s soccer team off coming into the 2016 season. The Bengals lost Maria Sanchez, the schools leading goal scorer and current member of Mexico’s U-20 national team, to UC Santa Clara after Idaho State reportedly blocked Sanchez from speaking to schools such as Florida State, Florida, Washington State, Arizona State and Notre Dame about potential scholarship opportunities, according to a June 2016 article by the Idaho State Journal.
During Sanchez’s second and final season with Idaho State, the Bengals won one match and tied another while losing 17 by an average margin of -1.94. Idaho State scored 21 goals in the 2015 season and Sanchez scored 15 of them, so the odds were not stacked in the Bengals’ favor after Sanchez’s departure.
After Sanchez left, Idaho State started to win games and a young squad with little to lose pulled out seven wins in the 2016 season, causing head coach Allison Gibson to tell The Bengal last year that the 2016 team was, “My favorite team I have ever coached.”
A large part of that was due to team play over individual play.
Instead of relying on one player to score all the goals, the Bengals were now doing it collectively and scored a season-high six goals in a home match against Northern Colorado.
This season, Idaho State returns six seniors and will look to make the conference tournament for the first time since 2014.
Men’s Basketball
Head Coach: Bill Evans – 7th season.
2016 Record: 6-26
The Take: The question entering the 2017-18 season for the Idaho State men’s basketball team is: “which year was the fluke?”
In the 2015-16 season, the Bengals, led by Ethan Telfair, who was an NBA hopeful and younger brother of the NBA’s 2004 13 overall selection, Sebastian Telfair, won 16 games, finished above the .500 mark for the first time in years and clinched a first-round-bye in the Big Sky Conference tournament where they lost to North Dakota, 83-49.
The expectations entering last season were as high as they have ever been in recent history as the Bengals lost one starter and Telfair passed up a chance at his NBA dream for a final shot in his senior season.
Then, injuries happened. Power forward Kyle Ingram was lost for the season before it even began and the Idaho State post suffered. Idaho State was routinely out-rebounded and when three-point specialist Gary Chivichyan went down with a groin injury, the Bengals offense did not have nearly enough firepower to keep up with its poor scoring defense, which ranked 10th out of 12 Big Sky teams. As a result, turnovers became a common theme for the season and Idaho State ranked dead last in assist-to-turnover-ratio.
Looking forward to this season, Ingram is back from injury and should solve a lot of the post problems from last season and with the seven-foot Serbian native Novak Topalovic, the Bengals could have an effective one-two punch on the low blocks.
Senior point guard Geno Luzcando returns in the backcourt and with Chivichyan coming off his injury and the return of redshirt-sophomore Brandon Boyd, who can shoot the lights out of the building much like Chivichyan, the Bengals could regain enough offensive wagons to compete this season, if they can avoid turnovers.
Women’s Basketball
Head Coach: Seton Sobolewski – 10th season.
2016 Record: 19-14
The Take: Defense, rebounding and more defense is what head coach Seton Sobolewski demands out of his team and it has found success, especially when it matters.
Last season, as a six seed, the Bengals used stout defense and rebounding to advance to the conference finals for the second year in a row.
The previous year, Idaho State did it as a nine seed and upset top-seeded Montana State on a buzzer-beater in the quarterfinals.
Idaho State lost senior guard Brooke Blair early in the season and redshirt-sophomore Grace Kenyon was in and out of the lineup due to a knee injury she suffered the previous season. Sayliar Grandon, who stepped up in the absence of the two guards, broke her finger in a road game against Southern Utah.
It was simply next player up for Sobolewski’s squad, as underclassmen from all over the roster came through when needed.
The Bengals lost one senior starter and return all of their depth for the upcoming season.
Softball
Head Coach: Candi Letts – 3rd season
2016 Record: 18-27
The Take: Last year, the Idaho State softball team was rebuilding from the loss of a host of four-year starters who graduated from the previous season. Nevertheless, the Bengals still made a run at the Big Sky title after underperforming during the regular season.
With an up and down regular season, which included the cancellation of four regular season home games, Idaho State got hot at the right time and squeaked into the conference tournament on the final weekend of the regular season.
Once in the tournament, the Bengals lost to Montana but beat Sacramento State twice and North Dakota once to advance to the conference finals where they fell to Weber State, 8-6.
Senior centerfielder, Kacie Burnett finished her ISU career ranked 9th all-time in NCAA history in batting average and led the country in batting average her senior season. Burnett’s loss will be detrimental to Idaho State this upcoming season as the Bengals will be without a player who was named the 2017 Big Sky Conference Player of the Year and was named First Team All-Big Sky each of the four years she started in the outfield.
Looking forward, the Bengals do have another batch of promising players as Idaho State regularly start four underclassmen and return its number one pitcher and cleanup hitter in Ashlyn Ames.
Cross Country/ Track & Field
Head Coach: Hillary Merkley – 2nd season and Nate Houle – 3rd season
2016 Record: NA
The Take: The men’s track and field team finished 8th in the outdoor season at the Big Sky Conference Championships last spring while the women finished 11th, which is a drop off from the indoor season where the Bengals men’s team finished 5th in the conference meet while the women pulled in in 7th.
Led by Indoor and Outdoor Conference champion thrower, Justin Franz, Idaho State sent five athletes for six events to the NCAA West Regional meet last May.
Franz finished 29th in shot put while Deante Gaines finished 38th in triple jump and 43rd in long jump.
800-meter runner Daniel Garz placed 29th, Sasha Kent, who competed in the steeplechase, finished 39th and Jennica Dodge ran the 10,000-meter for 32nd place finish.
Idaho State’s cross country men’s team finished fourth and the women finished 11th last fall at the conclusion.
Cross country runner Joseph Simmons recently ran for Team USA in the World Mountain Running Championships in Italy. Simmons finished 22nd out of 83 athletes between the age of 16 and 18 from 21 different countries.
Looking forward to this season, the track and field team recently added former Weber State coach and 33 year veteran, Dan Walker, to its staff, which brings both experience and connections to the team as they look to build off of last season.
Men’s Tennis:
Head Coach: Mark Rodel – 3rd season
2016 Record: 12-9
The Take: After finishing over the .500 mark for the first time since 2013, the Idaho State men’s tennis team returns two of its eight members in junior Francis Filipovich and senior Keegan Sullivan.
The men’s team finished the spring and team portion of the schedule in 5th place and lost in the first round of the Big Sky Conference Tournament to Montana, 4-0.
Head coach Mark Rodel lost six seniors from last year’s squad, including Sebastian Edin, who was named to Second Team All-Big Sky for singles play.
Edin finished last year with a 10-8 overall singles record and went 5-5 in conference play.
This years’ team will be young but will welcome graduate transfer, Adam Hornby from Dalton State College in Georgia where he ranked 42nd in singles and 12th in doubles in the NAIA.
Women’s Tennis:
Head Coach: Gretchen Maloney – 3rd season
2016 Record: 10-11
The Take: Every single member of the Idaho State women’s tennis team last year was a freshman, yet the team finished the team season in fourth place in the conference and booked their first trip to the conference tournament since 2004.
Despite having a losing record, the Bengals were within striking distance against Sacramento State as a controversial call cost Idaho State a match.
The Bengals also lost by a single point to Northern Arizona, who finished conference play with an 11-0 record.
Idaho State later fell to those same Lumberjacks in the conference tournament with a 4-0 loss in the semifinals but every player is set to return to the roster in the 2017-18 season.
Women’s Golf:
Head Coach: TBD
2016 Record: NA
The Take: After seven seasons at the helm, former head coach Kellie Hooper resigned after the 2016 season.
As of the publication date, a new coach has not been hired yet.
The lone senior last season was Anna DiGiallonardo and the team plans to return four seniors this season in Rachel Jensen, Katie Lee, Kylie Martens and Katrina Weil.
