Lady Jaguars Basketball - 56-44 Loss to Eden Valley-Watkins, Closest Game to the Eagles since the 1990s

The Lady Jaguars basketball team hosted the Eden Valley-Watkins Eagles tonight in a game between two second-place teams in the Central Minnesota Conference. As predicted it was a competitive and exciting game, even though the Eagles picked up their 15th straight CMC win over the Lady Jaguars since B-B-E joined that conference in 1999.

For the first 10 minutes in the first half, a tight game was on hand as the big crowd at the elementary school gymnasium saw a slugfest between two good conference opponents. Ties of 2-2, 9-9, and 11-11 were on the scoreboard in the first six minutes before the Eagles' offense began clicking and they tightened up their defensive intensity to a level the Lady Jaguars had not seen until tonight.

At halftime the score was 35-15, Eagles ahead.

In the second half, the Lady Jaguars played excellent defense while improving their rough-looking passing game from the first half. They outscored the Eagles 29-21 to bring the game's final margin.

Up next for the Lady Jaguars is a trip to Pierz this Friday, where they will face a solid Pioneers team that is also battling for first place in the CMC.

Around the CMC:
-Tonight at Howard Lake, the HL-W-W Lakers defeated Rockford 58-51 to up their conference record to 4-0 (9-3 overall). Rockford fell to .500 overall (5-5) and in the conference (2-2).
-At Holdingford, the Huskers (4-7, 2-2 CMC) hosted Kimball (2-9, 0-4 CMC) and beat the Cubs 43-19.
-At Maple Lake, the Irish (1-3 CMC, 7-5 overall) hosted Pierz and beat the Pioneers (2-2 CMC, 9-3 overall) 55-47 for their first CMC win of the season.

Tonight before the B-B-E/EV-W game, Eagles' head coach Tom Jansen was quoted as saying that the Central Minnesota Conference is as balanced as he has seen in his 10 years as coach at Eden Valley, in terms of seven of the eight conference teams. Tonight's results are indicative of just that.

More updates to follow.

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