We’ve waited all summer long to see our Raiders back in action and they have been chomping at the bit to get on their respective fields or courts to resume chasing that ever-elusive state championship. We spoke to all seven fall sports head coaches this last week, plus one team captain to get a sneak peek at how things are shaping up for them. Football, Volleyball, Girls and Boys Soccer, Girls Swimming, Girls Tennis, and Cross Country.

Last week we covered four of these teams, Boys Soccer, Girls Soccer, Girls Tennis and Girls Swim and Dive since their season started on August 22. Now we will take a look at the final three of our Varsity level sports and where they are at as they enter the 24-25 school season, Football, Volleyball and Cross Country. Volleyball starts their season at home on August 28 and Football and Cross-Country start on August 29.

Football

The Raiders lost quite a few starters to graduation, most notably, many players on the defensive side of the ball and a few offensive linemen. Senior Lukas Foss returns as the starting Quarterback.

“It’s always great when you have a returning starting Quarterback,” said Head Coach Dana Strain. All of our receivers are returning starters, our A back is a returning starter, so, our skill positions on the offensive side of the ball have a lot of returning starters. If you look at five starting offensive linemen, we've got at least two that we would say are returning starters, and a couple other guys that will fit in there that at least got some playing time last year, so we're not void of experience up front and while we're not the biggest, they're tough kids, and we'll compete.”

Defensively, the Raiders are looking a little thin on the returning starter count with just three of the eleven returning with starting experience.

“We like a lot of the kids that we have, but there is inexperience on that side of the ball,” explained Strain.

Experience always helps, especially with the jitters that happen in the first game of the season, but there is also a lot of drive and hunger being demonstrated in practice.

“All they see is, if there's not a returning starter, that's opportunity for me, and that's exactly how they should view it. So, they're just excited. We have a couple young kids that are chomping at the bit, and they're not allowing any older guys to jump in in front of them, and that's awesome. That's what you want to see. I don't think it puts any pressure on the kids, other than when we get to the first game night, they'll know, hey, I'm a little nervous right now because I haven't done this before, and that's okay. That's normal. That's exciting, that's all part of the fun,” added Strain.

Strain hopes that the players can take that nervous energy and channel it.

“We just teach them mentally what it is that they are feeling, their body's getting ready. It's a fun thing,” said Strain. “You just have to change your mindset of, it's not fear. It's nothing to be scared of. Your body feels different because you're about to do something that's as fun and exciting as you've ever done and embrace that. The truth of the matter is, you can say that they're still going to feel it, and they're still going to be nervous, but then, you know, once the ball is kicked off and they get a couple reps, that goes away, so they'll overcome that.”

The boys take to the turf on August 29, at home against Owatonna at 6:30 p.m. and the game will feature the United Way Pregame and Little Raiders at Halftime.

Cross Country

Captain Tristan Herbst stood in for Head Coach Joe Rabaey to talk about the six runners that graduated from the 23-24 season and that the next group of runners joining the team will not only even out the numbers but increase them for the 24-25 season.

“I think there might be a few more people joining when the school year starts,” said Herbst.

“A lot of people trained really hard this summer, and I'm excited for that, because that's going to replace who we lost with seniors. I think everybody's improving every year, this team's getting stronger every season,” he added.

One key piece to being a cross-country coach was explained several years ago by former head coach John Dewall, ‘The kids have to have fun.’ These kids have fun, and it is clear that Dewall relayed the message to Coach Rabaey because these kids obviously like their coach with how emphatic they were to announce that he was with his wife who was in labor.

Herbst said he was most excited to take on Two Rivers this year as the Warriors were a really tough team to beat last year, plus the two teams hung out a lot during a summer camp so it will certainly be a friendly rivalry on the courses all season long.

The team captains this year are Herbst, Linnea Ronning, Sienna McCoy, Parker Stoltz, Aiden Ruder.

Hastings Cross Country will open their season at the Park invite on Thursday, August 29 at Cottage Grove Middle School. The official times of the various heats are not listed, but the first race could start as early as 3:30 p.m.

Volleyball

The Volleyball team lost a few key players to graduation on both the outside and in the middle, losing the seven seniors overall. Moving up the ranks and joining Captains Haley Strain, Annabelle Norquist and Laura Thome will be the likes of Allie Leflay and Claire Reader in the middle, Lauren Meyer as a defensive specialist, Rachel Notch plus freshman Lexi Gruden and sophomore Andi Carlson.

Head Coach Elisabeth Curran is in her third season with the Raiders, and she is very excited to see how having stable coaching will do for the girls.

“It's sweet to see an elevated level of ball control coming into the gym this fall. I think volleyball knowledge is up a little bit across the board. I think it's also been really helpful to have consistent coaching across the board. We have all of our coaches coming back this year, which just already sets us at a higher level of not having to restart,” explained Curran. “We have a good core group that can just pick up where we left off last year.”

The returning coaches are Varsity Assistant Kelly Wusterbarth, JV Coach Haley Kutzler, B-Squad Coach Kayla Burros and ninth grade coaches Kay Beebe (9A) and Anna Timmerson (9B).

Volleyball has their first game of the season, at home against Simley, on Wednesday, August 28 at 6:30 p.m.

Special Note for all Raider Athletics

Many of the high school contests will be starting at different times this season as part of a test for the conference. The intention is to get games over earlier to allow the students to get home earlier and to clear the district properties faster.

Supporting each other

One very special aspect of the Raider Sports season is how the teams support each other. At any given moment, you might catch the swim team at a tennis match or football at a soccer match. This is intentional due to the guidance of Athletic Director Trent Hanson. Hanson pairs up teams and part of their responsibility of being on a Raider athletic team is they support each other by going to their partner teams games as a team. It builds excitement, camaraderie and knowledge of other sports that some student athletes might not otherwise have.

Football is the fall sport that typically has the largest fan base at their games with a lot of students watching from the stands. It is really special when that large group of students shows up for the less publicly popular sports like cross country, swimming and tennis. The extra boost the kids get seeing the additional fans is truly heartwarming, so if you can, make sure to get out and support all of the Raider sports and bring your students to cheer on their peers, the smiles are worth it, plus, you may just fall in love with another high school sport you were unaware of.