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Vandal Shots Week 13: Meet The A-Team

Editor’s note: The Idaho Vandals are an MCLA D1 team, competing in the Pacific Northwest Conference. Krieg Shaw, a senior midfielder, will be contributing photos on a weekly basis all season long. You can check out all of his posts here.
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MCLA Idaho Vandals Week 13-1
Scoring on the Zags during fall ball.

It’s the week of our first game… finally. The anticipation and excitement is pretty prevalent every practice, we are stoked to be able to start the season. Saturday we will leave early-ish in the morning and head over to Walla Walla, WA to play the Missionaries of Whitman College (D2). It should be a good game hopefully being a sign of great things to come.

This week we’ll check out the other side of the ball, junior attackman Eric Fletcher and sophomore attackman John Kopke.  Officially dubbed the A-Team.

Eric hails from Centennial High School in Boise, Idaho and has played two seasons for the Vandals. Being a two sport athlete throughout high school, Eric is the Sean Harrington of the offense. He earned himself a spot in the 1,000 lb club (total weight lifted in bench, squat and dead lift) and this work ethic carries on to today.

His strength, speed and unorthodox “noodle arms” usually gets him a match-up with the top pole on defense; despite this, once he gets some space, watch out for his laser rocket arms to fire one through the net. He also enjoys the occasional lax practice in his Hawaiian shirt.

MCLA Idaho Vandals Week 13-2
Like all attackmen, Eric enjoys the occasional slap check to the dong.

John Kopke comes from Lake City High School out of Coeur d’Alene and is in his second season with the Vandals. While only being 140 lbs soaking wet, he packs quite the punch when he wants to lay the wood and has become one of the more sneaky players on the team with his elusiveness around the cage.

MCLA Idaho Vandals Week 13-3
John charging the cage vs. Oregon.

What he doesn’t have in size, he makes up for with his tenacity and thinking on the fly. He is definitely one of the most relentless players I have ever seen and it shows in his performance come game time.

MCLA Idaho Vandals Week 13-4
John scoring against Montana this Fall.
MCLA Idaho Vandals Week 13-5
John played pretty well last year.

All in all, this has got to be the best all-around team Idaho has fielded, thanks to the dedication and hard work of both the players and the coaches.

MCLA Idaho Vandals Week 13-6
The whole gang last year. We looked pretty good.

In other news, a package arrived in the mail for us the other day. Remember our coat of arms that Coach Band created? Well luckily for us, some parents (my own) took it upon themselves to get some badges made up for the team. Check ‘em out.

MCLA Idaho Vandals Week 13-7
I wonder where we will put these babies.

And if you aren’t yet, you should start following Coach Mike Band’s blog. Good quality breakdown of whatever is on his mind. Also our website was relaunched this past week after being redone by Coach.

Editor’s note: Get even more from the Vandals in this team video talking about the lax life:

Oh, I almost forgot, no puppies on the pool table!

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Interested in spreading the gospel of your team? Want to contribute a weekly photo blog? Contact info@lacrosseallstars.com for more information.