An emotional conference win for the Raiders
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By Dalton Shadle
MOUNT AYR, Iowa — The Raiders hit the home court fast and hard last Friday in what was their conference championship game against the East Union Eagles. The game ended in a blowout 70-40 victory for the Raiders at home in Mount Ayr.
The Raiders left the Eagles trailing for most of the game, even tripilling their score in the first quarter.
Mount Ayr ended the night as conference winners with a 14-2 conference record tying with the South West Valley Timber Wolves for regular season championship.
Coach Bret Ruggles reminisced about his team in this senior night game.
“I really want to thank my seniors,” Bret Ruggles said. “We talked at the beginning of the year that this was going to be a very surreal year for us. This is my son’s class. These are kids that I’ve seen at birthday parties, kids that we’ve had sleepovers with. You know, we’ve grown up with these kids.”
With this being the seniors last season Bret Ruggles lays out the ones who have been there since the start.
“They’re good, hard, working kids,” he said. “I wished kids understood to come to work every day like Rowan Sackett does. I wish kids understood to have the fire and energy that Jaxson Greene does, to have the emotion that Zech Ranker does … He doesn’t play a whole lot, but when he does, he gets a bucket, and that kid smiles from ear to ear, and that’s amazing. Tate is very special to me as well. He’s like a son to me. I drugged him from gym to gym so we could work Jackson. You know, everything was about trying to get Jackson on a team, but we had to have, like another guy. So we took Tate. Tate played on a few AAU teams with Jackson. I think Tate got a better career because of it, but we really benefited from having him go with us everywhere.”
Rowan Sackett scored 28 points this conference season along with 30 rebounds. Jaxson Greene scored 56 points in the season with 21 rebounds. Zech Ranker scored 16 points in the season with one rebound. Tate Dugan scored 161 points in the season, while leading the Raiders with 123 rebounds. In his last season Jackson Ruggles scored 341 points leading the Raiders in points the season and his best season to date. He also secured 76 rebounds.
Proud of his son, Coach Ruggles talked about the history of his basketball path.
“Then obviously, my son, we talked about it, you know, after the game against East Union that he has the most minutes of any player in our program, by far,” Bret Ruggles said. “He’s been in our program since he was five, you know, he’s been a ball boy, he’s been a water boy, he’s been a statistician. He’s been a freshman, and then now he’s a senior.”
After the game Coach Ruggles felt melancholy of those who could have been there to share the win.
“We missed some guys, obviously, in any team, some guys leave, some guys kind of quit and move on,” he said. “I wish we had some of these guys back, but inevitably, these were the five that stayed with us, and I’m really proud of what they have become.”
In the game Jackson Ruggles led the Raiders scoring 24 points. Junior Adler Reed followed behind with 14 points scored. Tate Dugan also reached double figures in scoring with 12 points (all other stat lines were unavailable as of press time) .
“It was very surreal that night to sit there and watch those kids play on the floor together one last time,” Bret Ruggles said.
