Lacrosse provides another spring sports opportunity in the Magic Valley

KIMBERLY, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) — The vast majority of Idaho high school lacrosse teams come from the Boise metro area however there is one co-op team holding down the fort for the sport in the Magic Valley.

The spring sports season in the Magic Valley is the one with the most variety when it comes to options for student athletes and one of those options is lacrosse, however there is only one Magic Valley team at the high school ranks so how did these players get introduced to the game.

“One of my dad’s work partners played and that’s how I got introduced to it in like elementary,” said Quinn Mayes, a sophomore on the Magic Valley High School lacrosse team.

Mayes’s love for the game set off a chain reaction among some of his friends to join the sport as well.

“One of my friends named Quinn Mayes, he actually showed me the game and I started playing in middle school for a thing called Snake River Lacrosse and went from there into high school,” said Hank Dansie, a junior on the Magic Valley High School lacrosse team.

Snake River Lacrosse is the youth lacrosse program that was founded roughly 10 years ago by Rob Sturgill and John Lamb to bring the sport into the Magic Valley, however the program didn’t initially begin in Twin Falls but the growth of it has been evident.

“You know it has grown slowly. We actually started in Rupert, Idaho. Myself and John Lamb used to travel to Rupert three times a week with a group of kids and we started in Rupert and we told the Rupert folks that we needed to build the program in Twin,” said Sturgill, who helps coach the high school team.

Snake River Lacrosse has done just that, as their high school team consists of players from a multitude of Magic Valley high schools including Kimberly, Twin Falls and Canyon Ridge, but the goal is to continue the growth into the surrounding high schools.

“We would love kids to come out from Filer, from Jerome and build this up to where each of these high schools could technically have their own team,” Sturgill said.

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