Another Very Busy Night in Jaguars Country - Baseball Goes 1-1 in DoubleHeader - Fastpitch Drops Two Heartbreakers at Maple Lake

In a nutshell... the Jaguars girls golf team picked up 3rd place in their CMC meet at Maple Lake (1 shot behind Eden Valley-Watkins/Kimball), the Jaguars baseball team split their doubleheader with Maple Lake (held in Lake Henry, 4-1 L and 6-2 W), the Jaguars track and field teams hosted the 3rd annual Lions Invite at the High School sports complex and had personal bests broken while picking up a handful of first places.

Area baseball scores:
Albany 7, Sauk Centre 3
Foley 8, New London-Spicer 5
New London-Spicer 3, Foley 2
Rockford 13, Holdingford 1
Royalton 8, Upsala-Swanville Area 1 (Royalton, defending Section 5A Champ, is 5-0)
Paynesville 12, Long Prairie-Grey Eagle 0
Eden Valley-watkins 9, Kimball 4
Kimball 11, Eden Valley-Watkins 8
Pierz 18, Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted 0

The Jaguars led the CMC for a night after their huge win at Pierz yesterday, which was fun, and hopefully they can claw their way back on top. Pierz somehow is still in first place (5-2), a half game ahead of the Jaguars and Kimball (both 4-2 in the league).

I just heard that the Jaguars Fastpitch team lost both games of their doubleheader at Maple Lake. The first game ended as a heartbreaking loss where (I heard) they gave up a lead in the 7th inning. It's crushing when you think that both Maple Lake and B-B-E could win out the rest of their CMC games, and a split tonight by the Jaguars would have brought a first place tie for the conference title.

The scores were 5-4 and 12-8, both losses as mentioned. The Irish won the first game with the help of three Jaguars' errors, which brought in three unearned runs for the host team to take the game. The Jaguars were incredibly competitive with the high-powered Irish (who have won 40 straight CMC games over the past 4 seasons) and should feel good about their effort. I'll explain a little on that...

At the track meet I was talking to a couple Maple Lake coaches who felt that B-B-E & Maple Lake were the top teams in the CMC this year. (Fair analysis) I asked if the Irish had a fastpitch game last night (Monday), and they said the fields were not ready for their game so it was scrubbed (a game at Eden Valley-Watkins).

Meanwhile, our Jaguars were duking it out with Pierz in a home game that went eight innings, with our starting pitcher going the distance on the mound.

All I thought was "Whew, we did not have a chance going into this doubleheader tonight."

I was proved quite wrong, and the Jaguars had their chances in both games.

More on these games will be in next week's Observer and Bonanza Valley Voice.

They will remember tonight at playoff time. Maple Lake, who is now 7-0 in the CMC and overall, is a fellow Section 5A team for playoffs (for both baseball & fastpitch).

Area Fastpitch scores from tonight:
Albany 4, New London-Spicer 3
Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted 9, Pierz 0
Minnewaska Area 6, Yellow Medicine East 0 (Minnewaska is 9-1 and leads the West Central South Conference at 6-0)
Osakis 16, Royalton 3 (Osakis is 4-1)
Morris Area 5, Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City 4
Rockford 14, Holdingford 8
Rockford 12, Holdingford 6 (Rockford is 5-3 in the CMC, one game behind the Jaguars in third place)
Kimball 16, Eden Valley-Watkins 5
Kimball 12, Eden Valley-Watkins 4 (Kimball is 4-3 in 4th place in the CMC)

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