Rachael Kruger is an eternal flame. Constantly working to get better for the Walnut Grove lady tigers.
“She is learning and take and soaking every bit of it in,” said Walnut Grove Head Basketball Coach Rory Henry. “I know she wants to be successful and our motto is that we are a part of something bigger than ourselves and I know that she believes that.”
Rachael brings a spark that sets the standard for the her team.
“I’ve always said she will be the kid that will run through a brick wall for you,” said Jeff Kruger, Rachael’s dad.
“It’s a physical side of it, the screen she set, the things that don’t get into stat lines,” Henry said.
When the senior isn’t looking out for her lady tigers on the court, she’s looking out for the her community as a firefighter.
“Some days, I mean like last night we had a game and I got home and we got called out,” Rachael said. “There’s a lot of nights where I go home and I eventually get a call or something, and my dad [also a firefighter] and I will go.”
At 17-years-old, she goes from a full day of school and basketball to attending a call.
“Someone in our community had a barn fire and it was actually my first fire call over the summer and I got to go out there and we were out about six or seven hours putting out the fire so,” Rachael said.
It calls for some long days.
“To see her, you know, whether it’s midnight one or two o’clock in the morning or it’s six o’clock in the morning when she gets woken up by a call,” Jeff said.
Those days sometimes feel even longer for Rachael.
“This past spring I went in to get some blood work done and they told me I need an MRI,” Rachael said. “So in May, we found out that I have a non-cancerous brain tumor and that was a scary moment for sure.”
The tumor located in her pituitary gland does cause physical exhaustion for Rachael.
“You know just to see her get up and get ready and be like ‘okay we got to go we got to support our community, we got to do these things’,” Jeff said. “It doesn’t matter how tired she is she just keeps going.
It’s safe to say Rachael’s dedication to her team and community never burns out.
“I hope that there’s, you know, some little girl watching out there, thinking that maybe one day she wants to do something like [this] and you know she can do it.
