The Jaguars finish the conference season 7-7, a respectable finish and better than their 5-9 record in 2006. They earned sweeps over Rockford and Maple Lake, while also getting wins from Holdingford, Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted, and Kimball.
The Jaguars travel to Osakis tomorrow for a 4:30 non-conference game against the Section 5A opponent Silverstreaks. The best they can do this season is finish 9-9, by beating Osakis tomorrow and NL-S next Tuesday.
They control their own destiny in the sub-section as far as seedings go, as they need to defeat Osakis tomorrow to gain the upper hand on the number-three seed in 5A-South.
The Lady Jaguars softball team had a chip on their shoulder as they traveled to Upsala for a non-conference game today. They had been seeded a dismal sixth in Sub-Section 5A-West, which is dominated by five Prairie Conference teams. Though they had a record similar to other Prairie teams at the time of seeding (like Osakis, for example, which was 5-5, and Upsala, which was 5-4), they ended up being placed below Swanville, which was 5-8, based on a tiebreaker vote. That means, there was a second round of voting by the eight sub-section team coaches, because when the first tally was given, B-B-E and Swanville were tied for fifth place. I may be over-reaching a bit here, but how on earth can anyone compare a 5-8 record from the Prairie Conference and line it up with a 5-9 record that our Lady Jaguars had?
Fast forward a few days, to today, when the Lady Jaguars traveled to Upsala to face the Cardinals, who were on a two-game winning streak with wins over Osakis (8-3 score) and St.John's Prep (7-4 score) last Thursday and Friday. The Cardinals were 7-4 overall coming into today's game, and 7-4 in the Prairie Conference (3rd place).
After trailing 2-0 after two innings, the Lady Jaguars woke up and started punishing the Cardinals' senior pitcher to the tune of 16 hits and 14 earned runs. (She was the same pitcher who fired 10 strikeouts and gave up only six hits during their 8-3 win over Osakis last week. Keep in mind that Osakis will host the Lady Jaguars on Thursday in the playoff opener.) Meanwhile, the Lady Jaguars freshmen pitcher, Laura Johnson, was holding the Cardinals to only three hits, one earned run, and five strikeouts.
Upsala was seeded number four in the sub-section and will get a home playoff game that comes with a top-four seed. They will host Swanville (7-8). Osakis is the third seed, and the Lady Jaguars will be fired up as ever when they face the Silverstreaks on Thursday at 4:30 (in Osakis at their high school grounds). Coming into this season, no one, including myself, knew how they would fare this season, with such new and untested pitchers taking the helm of the team. They will take a 6-11 record into playoffs, with a handful of tight wins and losses, battle tested from the CMC, and look forward to earning a trip to Whitney Park in two weekends for the Section 5A Final Four.
Lastly for this post, I want to mention that the boys and girls track and field teams will be at Pierz on Tuesday for the Central Minnesota Conference championship meet. The event will begin around 4:00, with the coaches meeting at 3:30. Complete results will appear in next week's local newspapers.
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