{"id":4639,"date":"2017-05-24T15:30:36","date_gmt":"2017-05-24T22:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/ruffin-signs-with-division-i-mount-st-marys\/"},"modified":"2017-05-24T15:30:36","modified_gmt":"2017-05-24T22:30:36","slug":"ruffin-signs-with-division-i-mount-st-marys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/sports\/ruffin-signs-with-division-i-mount-st-marys\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruffin signs with Division I Mount St. Mary\u2019s"},"content":{"rendered":"

Juneau-Douglas High School standout swimmer Mia Ruffin is the latest Juneau student-athlete to join the college ranks.<\/p>\n

On May 1, Ruffin signed a national letter of intent to swim at Mount St. Mary’s University, a private Catholic school in rural Maryland. The Mountaineers are affiliated with the NCAA Division I Northeast Conference (NEC).<\/p>\n

The Crimson Bear caught the attention of the Mountaineers coaching staff in March at the 2017 Speedo Senior Sectional Meet in Federal Way, Washington.<\/p>\n

In November, Ruffin helped the Crimson Bears girls finish second at the 2016 ASAA\/First Natinal Bank Alaska Swim &Dive State Championships<\/a>. Finishing first in the 200 individual medley and 100 breaststroke, Ruffin was the only JDHS swimmer to win any individual state championships last season.<\/p>\n

There are currently three Juneau-bred swimmers competing collegiately: Dakota Isaak at Boise State University<\/a>, Ciera Kelly at Washington State University<\/a> and Kenny Fox at Denison University<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, JDHS’ Aidan Seid signed <\/a>with Occidental College.<\/p>\n

In college, Ruffins says her focus will be on the breaststroke and butterfly — her two favorite strokes.<\/p>\n

The Empire asked her six questions at the Dimond Park Aquatic Center recently about the big signing. Responses have been edited for clarity.<\/p>\n

Juneau Empire: How has the process been of getting recruited by a Division I school?<\/span><\/p>\n

Mia Ruffin:<\/strong> It’s been kind of hectic because you have a bunch of colleges calling you and contacting you and wanting to send you down there for a recruit trip. I’m really indecisive when making decisions so it took me a really long time to decide what college I wanted to go to because I had four options.<\/p>\n

JE: Maryland isn’t too far away from home for you?<\/span><\/p>\n

Ruffin:<\/strong> Northeastern College is in Boston and Wagner (College) is in New York, so my top three options were all on the East Coast, so I was totally OK with it.<\/p>\n

JE: How much do you love being in the water and how have you nurtured a love for swimming?<\/span><\/p>\n

Ruffin:<\/strong> Honestly, when I was a sophomore, I wasn’t into swimming at all. I kind of quit swimming for a while and then I started junior year swimming with the high school. My high school coach Seth (Cayce) showed that he really cared about me and saw that I could go pretty far in swimming. It just got me really motivated and made me want to start trying really hard. … I love the aspect of competing against people and I love … getting to travel for swimming. It’s definitely a privilege I’m very thankful for.<\/p>\n

JE: Besides your coaches, are there other supporters that were proud of you when you signed?<\/span><\/p>\n

Ruffin:<\/strong> (Volunteer coach) Jenna Rutecki helped me a lot. … We would write pros and cons of each college and kind of figure it that way. … My mom really helped me. She just said wherever I want to go, she’ll support me. My friend Burgen (Davis), he’s kind of my training buddy — well, not necessarily because he’s a lot faster than me because he’s a boy and I’m a girl (laughs) —but we train a lot together and he really helps me stay motivated for swimming.<\/p>\n

JE: Do you ever wonder what you’d do with all that time you weren’t in the water because it is a big commitment (if you didn’t swim)?<\/span><\/p>\n

Ruffin: <\/strong>I just took a week off two weeks ago and I literally didn’t know what to do because I’m at the pool twice a day: before school and after school. I didn’t know what to do. I just had a lot of time to focus on school though which is great but it’s just weird not having that part of my routine.<\/p>\n

\n

• Contact sports reporter Nolin Ainsworth at 523-2272 or nolin.ainsworth@juneauempire.com.<\/b><\/p>\n

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Juneau-Douglas High School standout swimmer Mia Ruffin is the latest Juneau student-athlete to join the college ranks. On May 1, Ruffin signed a national letter of intent to swim at Mount St. Mary’s University, a private Catholic school in rural Maryland. The Mountaineers are affiliated with the NCAA Division I Northeast Conference (NEC). The Crimson […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":425,"featured_media":4640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-4639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4639"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=4639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}