Raiders hoops start ‘stacking bricks’
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By DALTON SHADLE
MOUNT AYR, Iowa — In every sport it’s the final results that show a team’s success or lack thereof, but for the Mount Ayr boy’s basketball team a big part of that is the process of how they get there that matters the most.
“So our expectations don’t necessarily go into wins and losses as much as we want to get better every day,” Raider coach Bret Ruggles said. “We talked about stacking bricks. You make a wall by stacking bricks. That’s the idea. Is you want to try to stack one brick at a time. The goal is, at the end of a week, you’ve got five bricks, you’ve got your foundation. The next week, you put five more bricks on you’ve got a part of the wall, you know. And so our goal has always been stacking bricks — one percent better every day.”
Last season the Raiders had a 20-4 record, which included going 14-2 in Pride of Iowa Conference action, which was good enough for second in the league. Mount Ayr fell in the district final game.
Mount Ayr returns Jackson Ruggles to the hardwood as he led the team in scoring last season averaging 19.9 points per game. The senior also averaged 5.5 rebounds and 3.3 assists each game.
Also returning the team is Tate Dugan. The senior was the team’s leading rebounder last season as he pulled down 7.5 rebounds a game, while also scoring just over eight points a contest.
Advancing farther in the post season is goal of the two players.
“I definitely wanna play on Saturday,” Jackson Ruggles. “You know, getting beat in the district final kind of hurts … I want to be one of those guys that play on that day.”
Dugan shares that goal along with Ruggles.
“We know, like, what it takes to get there now,” Dugan said. “So now we’re just going to prepare each and every day, like with that golden mindset, making it to a Saturday.”
To get there coach Ruggles stated that it’s all about the process whether it’s on the court or the classroom
“We always talk to our guys about, you’re going to have your first practice, and then the next day, can you clean up one thing, and it might be one pass, one shot,” he said. “We talked about that idea of in school, if you could be one percent better every day, after 30 days, you’re 30 percent better, which for most kids, that’s passing a class. So if you could just do that one percent every single day, it’s a little bit better, a little bit better.”
By getting better everyday in all phases will hopefully take the team to where it wants to be by season’s end.
“We have a ladder of success, and that top of that, success has always been win the conference, get to a district championship, playing a sub state, trying to get to state. You know, that’s always kind of been our focal point. It’s never been our goal, but it’s just always one of our expectations is to be up at that level.
“We always wanna be the team that everybody celebrates if they beat us, we want to see them celebrate, because that’s a good sign that you’re at the top of the level. You know not everybody can be there.”
The Raiders start the season on the road as they played in the Central Decatur Jamboree on Monday in Leon and the first three actual games will be in opposing gymnasiums. Mount Ayr’s first home game will be on December 9 when they host Southwest Valley.