NC fall lacrosse welcomes new coach and renewed hopes for improvement
NC boys lacrosse will work on more ball movement drills at their next practice on Thursday, August 23. The players will split between varsity and junior varsity to practice more efficiently and focus on different skills for each group with varsity traveling to the NC upper grass field and junior varsity staying on their usual practice field—the Awtrey middle school field.
August 23, 2018
NC fall lacrosse kicked off the season with their first practice on Tuesday, August 14. The coaches and players prepare for their season with workout and skill drills to boost their athleticism, ball movement, and field competence.
“For fall ball, we’re going to be working on athletic ability, stick skills, and then lacrosse IQ—those are my top three goals,” Coach Kyle Vankauwenberg said.
New to coaching lacrosse at NC, Vankauwenberg teaches Special-Education during the school day and took over for Coach Pinckney this year, who left his position as one of last year’s lacrosse coaches due to familial reasons.
“Coach Vankauwenberg was a high level player at Kell High School, and Kell has an amazing program, so I know he brings a lot of skill and knowledge to this season,” Head Lacrosse Coach Matthew Stanhope said.
Coach Vankauwenberg plans to bring back basic drills to keep the athletes working hard and boosting their performance on the field. With simple lunge jumps and figure-eight races, Vankauwenberg can already see the boys putting in more effort and improving their hustle.
Freshman Jackson Bampfield practices shooting low in the goal while goalie Aiden Youngblood practices saving the difficult shots. Working on low shots will increase the team’s probability of making the shot in either between the goalies’ legs or near the bar of the goal. “We need to work on our finesse; that’s what will make us hard to catch,” Coach Matthew Stanhope said.
“For our players, I just expect them to improve individually and get [to be] the best they can so we can be more successful when we start the spring season,” Coach Vankauwenberg said.
Stanhope sees new opportunities for NC’s lacrosse program in the freshman who began playing this year. New freshmen players allowed the fall team to almost double in size, and Stanhope plans to help train these newcomers to advance in the spring season.
“The most promising thing we’ve got going on right here is the amount of guys we have out. We have 37 players this year, and that’s almost twice the amount of players from last year. We have lots of freshman, which is really amazing because as long as we continue to build and grow, North Cobb [lacrosse] will get much better,” Coach Stanhope said.
Freshman Jackson Bampfield practices shooting low in the goal while goalie Aiden Youngblood practices saving the difficult shots. Working on low shots will increase the team’s probability of making the shot in either between the goalies’ legs or near the bar of the goal. “We need to work on our finesse; that’s what will make us hard to catch,” Coach Matthew Stanhope said.
The team plans to practice with weekly drills and workout routines this year under their new coach Vankauwenberg. The boys will work hard to prepare for the fall season and have already welcomed their new coach with open arms.
