By Mike Drooger –

There was excitement in the air at Tyler on Monday night, December 13. While the Russell-Tyler-Ruthton girls’ basketball team had already played in the new gym in Tyler, the boys had not. Work has been ongoing in Tyler for most of the last two years on a $35 million dollar facility west and a little south of the present school building in Tyler. The new facility replaced the school buildings in Russell, Tyler, and Ruthton. So while there was excitement to be playing in the new gym, there was also sadness as the wrecking ball hit the building in Ruthton very early in the morning on December 13.

The RTR boys road the excitement of being the first Knights boys’ team to play in the new gym to an insurmountable lead of 48-7 at halftime over the Edgerton Flying Dutchmen, and they cruised to a 71-16 victory. The stat sheet, as one might expect, was heavily in favor of the Knights. EHS suffered 40 turnovers, 24 of which were steals by the Knights. RTR made more three-point shots (7) than Edgerton made total shots from the field (6).

Jacob Fischer made a free throw at the 15:20 mark to put EHS on the board. An indication how the game went came on the second Fischer attempt. He made the charity toss, but it was waved off because Fischer’s teammate had stepped into the lane too soon. Fischer’s free throw made the score 3-1 in favor of RTR. The next time Edgerton scored it was 23-3. Jared Fischer scored down low (assist Nolan Buckridge) for points two and three. The scored mushroomed to 34-3 before freshman Blake Schultz made a free throw at the 5:27 mark.