Tenney, Northern Lakes top Prairie 6-2 in Spirit Lake

Gage Tenney turned a tight North Idaho League game into Northern Lakes’ latest sign of traction. The rising junior at Timberlake High delivered a two-run single that put the Mountaineers ahead for good in a 6-2 win over Prairie at John Shaffer Field in Spirit Lake, a game that had been postponed from Tuesday and moved to Wednesday at 5 p.m.

Northern Lakes got the kind of all-around summer baseball performance that can shape a season. Nate Beardsall of Timberlake struck out five in five innings, and Jake Larcher of Lakeland added three strikeouts over two innings to finish the job. Prairie had its own production at the plate, with Kaiden Kubo of Post Falls collecting three hits and scoring a run, but the Cardinals could not catch up after Tenney’s swing opened the gap.

The result left Northern Lakes at 3-2 overall and 1-2 in league play, a steadier place than where the Mountaineers stood after being swept by Lewis-Clark in their North Idaho League opener on June 8. For a program built around players from Timberlake, Lakeland and other nearby schools, the June 11 win mattered less as a single box-score line than as evidence that the roster is starting to settle in. Tenney’s hit, Beardsall’s five innings and Larcher’s relief work all pointed to a team finding momentum through different parts of the lineup and staff.

Prairie dropped to 0-3 overall and 0-3 in North Idaho League play, but the Cardinals are still in the middle of a broader transition. Prairie finished second at the Whitworth Prospect Series on June 1 and had not fielded an AA program since the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season before returning to the North Idaho League in 2026. That makes every league game part of a larger reset for the program, with players like Kubo giving the roster early competitive markers even in defeat.

The matchup has already become one of the league’s more familiar summer pairings. Northern Lakes beat Prairie 6-3 at John Shaffer Field on June 11, 2025, and Mountaineers coach Bryce Johnson said then, “I think it’s going to be a good matchup with us all year long.” American Legion Baseball has been building that kind of continuity since 1925, and the North Idaho version keeps the same promise alive in Spirit Lake, Post Falls and the surrounding towns: local players, close-to-home rivalries and another step in the pipeline that carries prep baseball through the summer.