Jaguars Football Drops Intense, Exciting Game in Section Quarterfinals, 32-27 at Minneota

After falling behind 20-0 in the first half, the Jaguars scored in the final two minutes before halftime to make it a 20-7 game. They badly outplayed Minneota in the second half but fell in a wild 32-27 game.

The Jaguars finish the season 2-7 overall.

Around Section 5A:
K-M-S 39, R-T-R 13
Dawson-Boyd 34, Canby 0
Renville County West 50, Lakeview 38

Other scores...
Eden Valley-Watkins 47, Benson 8 (Section 5AA)
Pierz 48, Holdingford 0 (Section 6AA)
Rockford 41, Breck 14 (Section 5AAA)
Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted 12, Maple Lake 0 (Section 4AA)

From Section 4A, the Ogilvie Lions suffered a first-round playoff exit when they hosted Lester Prairie/Holy Trinity and lost 14-12 last night. The second-seeded Lions end what can be considered a turnaround season with a 7-2 final record. Seventh-seeded LP/HT, with a 2-7 record, moves on to face a tough Royalton team in the section semi-finals. They went 1-7 in the regular season, while the Royals are 7-2. These types of upsets are rare, from 7th or 8th-seeded football teams.

****Fresh update on volleyball playoffs. If the Jaguars defeat the Kimball Area Cubs on Thursday night, they would then advance to the sub-section semi-final match which is slated to take place at the Melrose Area High School. The closeness of Melrose suggests that this will more or less be a home match for the Jaguars, which is terribly exciting. They would face the winner of the Eden Valley-Watkins/Braham match on Friday, October 26 at 7:00.

I have volleyball information regarding other teams around the Central Minnesota Conference. Holdingford pulled off a big upset over Eden Valley-Watkins on October 16, when they traveled to the Eagles' homecourt and won by a 3-1 score. The Huskers may have used their win in game three over our Jaguars match at Holdingford on October 11 as a boost that helped them achieve the win over Eden Valley-Watkins. The Eagles (16-6 overall) fell into a third-place tie with Pierz (4-3) in the final CMC standings, with Maple Lake sitting alone in second (6-1) behind our conference champion Jaguars volleyball team.

Kimball Area (7-14 overall, 1-6 CMC) will be entertained by our Jaguars volleyball team on Thursday night at 7:00 in the Sub-Section 5A-South quarterfinals. The Cubs defeated Ogilvie (4-17-3 overall) in the "play-in" match on Monday night by a 3-0 score.

In the north half of Section 5A, top-seeded Pine River-Backus (23-2) will open up their playoff action by hosting Sebeka (17-8-1). Sebeka won their play-in match against Pillager (6-21 overall) on Monday night. The Sebeka-PR/B matchup is intriguing because Sebeka had recently pushed the second-best team in that sub-section to five games in a 3-2 loss to Nevis (22-2). Nevis had defeated PR-B in a five-game match on October 11. It is my assertion that the north half of the section is balanced (after their low seeds have lost out) and that their top seed (Pine River-Backus) is ripe for upsetting.

Meanwhile, there will be no upsets on the horizon for our Jaguars. I feel they will steamroll their sub-section playoff opponents, in lieu of a date with the Saturday, November 3rd Section 5A championship match.

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