Seven Vandals earn Sun Belt honors
Despite finishing up a 1-10 season, the Vandal football team was able to earn the respect of the coaches and players of the Sun Belt and had seven players earn all-conference honors. Idaho had two players earn first-team honors, one with second-team honors, four earned honorable mentions and one found his way onto the newcomer team. The two first-teamers were senior receiver Josh McCain and sophomore punter and kicker Austin Rehkow. Senior center Mike Marboe takes home second-team honors and junior defensive end Quinton Bradley, junior linebacker Marc Millan, junior running back Elijhaa Penny and freshmen quarterback Matt Linehan earned honorable mention. Jordan Rose, a freshman offensive lineman, also landed his way on the awards list as he was named to the newcomer team. Rehow was also a finalist for the Ray Guy Award, given out to the nation’s top punter.
Mike Scott named co-Big Sky Player of the Week
With big performances in two victories over Washington State and UC Davis, Idaho senior point guard Mike Scott was named co-Big Sky Player of the Week along with Eastern Washington’s Venky Jois. In the victories over WSU and UC Davis last week he combined for 38 points, 10 assists and only one turnover. For the season, the Los Angeles native has only turned the ball over three times through seven games and is averaging more than 17 points per game.
Floeck adds two for 2015
The Idaho cross country program recently added two more to the 2015 recruiting class as Drew Schultz of Boise and McCall Skay from Spokane signed their national letters of intent to run for the Vandals. These are two of the first cross country signings for Idaho coach Travis Floeck who is in his first season at Idaho as the distance coach. Schultz is coming off a senior cross country season in which he won the Idaho 5A Idaho State Cross Country title and is currently preparing for his senior track season at Capital High School. Skay is also preparing for her senior track season at West Valley High School. The two signees will be replacing the two graduating seniors on the cross country team — one from the men’s team and one from the women’s team.
Volleyball adds four
The Idaho cross country team wasn’t the only program to sign some commits in December as four high school volleyball players have officially committed to the Vandals. Three of the four recruits hail from the state of Arizona in Laine Waters, Paige Rupiper and DeVonne Ryter. The fourth commit is a northwest product in Natalie Jensen from Tacoma, Washington. Waters and and Ryter are both middle blockers but Ryter can also play on the outside. Rupiper is also a hitter and Jensen is a setter. These four young Vandals will look to fill the void of four graduating players from the team that lost in the opening round of the Big Sky Tournament to Northern Arizona.