Elle Ruffridge's love affair with gym could lead to Iowa's all-time record
POCAHONTAS, Ia. — Elle Ruffridge entered her high school gym angry.
A day after her team lost to Nevada in overtime Jan. 20, the end of a 40-game winning streak, she felt compelled to practice on her own.
She toiled at her favorite place in the world, the Pocahontas Area high school gym. Her comfort zone. Her therapy place.
"I've fallen in love with it," Ruffridge said.
To her, every shot makes her better.
Ruffridge is on pace to break the state’s all-time girls’ basketball scoring record of 2,756 points set by Rock Valley’s Deb Remmerde in 2003. After Monday’s game against Spirit Lake, she had 2,743 points. She will likely break the record sometime this week.
After the Nevada loss, she pushed her 5-foot-3 frame to its limits at the 3-point line. Her mechanical rebounding partner — a machine called The Gun made by an Ohio-based company called Shoot-A-Way — methodically funneled basketballs into an air-powered chute that blasted them at chest level every 3 seconds. All the while, Ruffridge circled the perimeter back and forth, like a windshield wiper sweeping the court.
The machine boomed out basketballs in a rhythmic pattern, followed by her arching shots toward the basket. Most of them snapped the net.
Boom, swoosh.
Boom, swoosh.
Boom, swoosh.
Ruffridge attempted 1,000 3-pointers in her self-designed workout. She made 859, all recorded by The Gun's digital counter.
By the end, she was sweaty and smiling.
"When I go into the gym and work, I look up — and I want more," Ruffridge said.
Ruffridge, whose father, Brandon, is an assistant coach and the school's activities director, spends more time in the gym than the school janitors. Her dad has the keys to the gym, and it's a short walk from the Ruffridge family's home to school.
For this girl who routinely shoots 1,000 free throws a day in the summer and wears high top Chuck Taylors on her feet, the long dance with her favorite place will be ending soon. The defending state champions are expected to play their last regular-season home game Tuesday against Manson-Northwest Webster. There could be two more regional games there the following week.
"A lot of emotion and memories fill me when I step into the gym," Ruffridge said. "It's where it all started."
By early March, when Ruffridge hopes to celebrate winning a repeat state title, her days in the gym will start to become a past chapter in her basketball life.
The start of a journey
Elle Ruffridge was awestruck by basketball when she was in kindergarten.
She was a water girl in 2005 for the varsity basketball team, which reached the state tournament. Ruffridge kept her own statistics and was a big fan on the bench.
When the team reached state, she looked around the arena and set a future goal.
"I was watching every little thing, taking it all in," Ruffridge said. "I told myself, 'I will be here someday.'"
Playing basketball became a great passion since she had a Little Tikes hoop in the family's basement.
"From the moment she got that, she couldn't put the ball down," Brandon Ruffridge said.
She became a precocious player. When she was a third-grader, she was allowed to compete in a youth basketball camp for kids in fourth through eighth grades.
"She fit right in with the junior high boys perfectly, even though she was 4 feet tall," girls' basketball coach Robert Maske said.
Her work ethic kept her going in the gym, day after day.
"Elle decided she wanted to be the best shooter in the state," Maske said.
Her father would rebound for her until the automation of The Gun took over for him. When the device arrived at school, Elle was in seventh grade. She found a workout partner that seemed to have endless abilities to feed her the ball. Ruffridge trained her arms to lob the ball into the net, over and over.
"When we got that Gun, her shot just took off," Brandon said.
Ruffridge, who has signed to play at Missouri State, has averaged 30 points a game this season.
She scored 612 points her freshman year. By the time she reached 1,345 points, she was considered a candidate to break Remmerde's record.
Ruffridge met Remmerde, the state record holder, at a basketball camp. Remmerde was in Orange City as a Northwestern College assistant coach at the time.
Who would know that, years in the future, the little girl would be chasing her record?
The chase
Iowa was a late comer to five-on-five basketball. In the first season of competition, 1984-85, Katie Abrahamson of Cedar Rapids Washington became the initial scoring champ with 528 points.
Since then, the career scoring record has been held by five other girls. Molly Tideback of Waterloo Columbus scored 1,859 points before graduating in 1988. The mark progressed to Mary Berdo of Washington (2,206), Sara Stribe of Carroll (2,245), Anne O'Neil of Cedar Rapids Kennedy (2,494) and Remmerde.
Ruffridge has received increased media coverage and seen her Twitter and Instagram social media accounts grow.
"Lately, it's kind of been a crazy topic," Ruffridge said. "It's something I can't block out of my mind."
Some of Ruffridge's followers are younger girls who want to learn from her. It takes her back to her own past.
"I was once them, looking up to good basketball players," Ruffridge said.
The sport has worked its way into her sleep.
"Every dream, every night," Ruffridge said.
She recently dreamed of winning a game against Cherokee in the state championship, then holding up the title trophy.
"I woke up with chills," Ruffridge said.
The scoring record is notable. But Ruffridge is climbing the charts in 3-pointers (she owns the state record with more than 400) and is second in assists.
When passing the ball to her teammates for a basket, She and her teammates smile and look at each other and point.
"It just fills my heart," Ruffridge said.
There's a lot of community support for her to break the scoring record. Fans follow the team to away games and pack the stands.
"Everyone wants to see Elle get the record," said Carole Hohensee, the team chaperone who also babysat Elle when she was a little girl.
Remmerde, who set the record in 2003, said the mark is important to her but is not her favorite high school basketball memory. Team accomplishments were bigger to her.
"It's the three state titles and the fun we had," Remmerde said. "The older I get and the more removed I am from high school, the more I realize we really had something special."
Remmerde said she didn't set out to break the scoring record, it simply happened as she piled up the points. She's kept an eye on Ruffridge's pursuit of the mark.
"I hoped it would last forever," Remmerde said. "That's the competitor in me."
Like Remmerde, Ruffridge said she's primarily looking for wins, not records.
"If I'm meant to break this record, that's all right," Ruffridge said. "If it doesn't happen, it's all right."
Goodbye to the gym
The Pocahontas Area gym was built in the 1950s. There's a stage and velvet curtain at one end. At the other? The scoreboard, with state tournament banners.
The court has brown stains on its floorboards, a colorful reminder of a water leak back in the 1980s.
A banner recognizing Ruffridge as last year's Gatorade Iowa player of the year hangs on a wall.
People are used to seeing Ruffridge alone in the gym, attempting shot after shot.
"When they see me, they just smile," Ruffridge said.
It won't be long before the lights go out on her high school career. Ruffridge will find a new place to play.
"It's my second home," Ruffridge said of the gym. "It's my favorite place in the world."
Iowa's Top 10 Career Scorers, all-time:
No. Name, School, Graduation Year, Points
1. Deb Remmerde, Rock Valley, 2003: 2,756
2. Elle Ruffridge,Pocahontas Area, 2017: 2,743*
3. Jennifer Jorgensen, SE Webster-Grand, 2008: 2,708
4. Anne O'Neil, C.R. Kennedy, 2000: 2,494
5. Jennifer Goetz, Keokuk Cardinal Stritch, 2003: 2,433
6. Kala Kuhlmann, Charter Oak-Ute, 2006: 2,337
7. Margo Muhlbauer, IKM (Manilla), 2006: 2,304
8. Lindsay Hoehns, Twin Cedars (Bussey), 2010: 2,253
9. Hallie Christofferson, Exira, 2010: 2,247
10. Sara Stribe, Carroll, 1998: 2,245
* — Active; totals through Feb. 6