A Successful Monday Night in Jaguars Country - Baseball Wins 4-2 at Rockford, Fastpitch Wins 11-3 at Pierz

First of all, update on Tuesday at 2:30... all events are a "go" for today.
The Jaguars baseball team improved to 9-2 in the Central Minnesota Conference with a hard-earned 4-2 win at Rockford, completing the season sweep of the Rockets for the second straight season. This game was rescheduled from April 8. The Jaguars host Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted in a double-header at Saints Field in Elrosa tomorrow, with the first game at 4:30.

The Jaguars' overall record is 10-2, while the Rockets fall to 8-7. The Jaguars are 9-2 in the CMC and still trail the Pierz Pioneers by a half game in the standings. Pierz managed to escape an upset bid at Holdinford in a 7-4 win over the last-place Huskers (1-10 CMC, 1-13 overall) tonight.

Baseball scores:
Albany 8, Long Prairie-Grey Eagle 0 (Albany leads the West Central North Conference with an 8-1 record, a half game over Foley)
Eden Valley-Watkins 4, Maple lake 2
Royalton 3, Pillager 1
Paynesville 11, Sauk Centre 1
Sauk Centre 13, Paynesville 10
Melrose 13, New London-Spicer 7
Minnewaska Area 5, Lac qui Parle Valley 2
Lac qui Parle Valley 8, Minnewaska Area 1

The Jaguars fastpitch team won their 10th game of the season with an error-free 11-3 win at Pierz, completing a season sweep of the Pioneers (2-9 CMC, 3-12). Their record is 9-4 in the CMC and 10-5 overall. The 10 wins equals the win total from the 2006 regular season, a total that is the most wins since 2000 when they were 10-10-1 going into playoffs. They travel to Legion Memorial Park at Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted tomorrow for a 5:00 game to wrap the 2008 regular season. Playoffs begin Friday (see below).

Fastpitch scores:
Sauk Centre 14, Melrose 3
Melrose 7, Sauk Centre 6
Paynesville 8, New London-Spicer 1
Maple Lake 13, Holdingford 3 (the Huskers are 7-8)
Kimball 13, St. John’s Prep 2 (Kimball is 7-7)
Swanville 11, Royalton 5
Hinckley-Finlayson 3, East Central 2 (HF's first win of the season, both are Section 5A teams in the east sub-section)
Minnewaska Area 11, Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City 2
Minnewaska Area 14, Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City 13 (the teams combined for 35 hits!)

I've been looking over the teams in Section 5A for both fastpitch and baseball. After looking through the schedules & results for some of the top teams in both sports, I've realized just how good the chances are for the Jaguars to win championships in their section tournaments. You have to go back to 1995 and 1996 in the B-B-E archives to see both teams having such excellent chances of winning sub-section or section championships. The last 2 weeks of May will be terribly exciting for B-B-E sports fans.

(Now if only gas would come back down!)

Weather update on Tuesday morning... It's 11am and we have a windchill of 36 degrees! Oh and did I mention it's raining too? Not fun. Behind the rain showers (that run a line up central Minnesota right now) in western Minnesota is temps in the 40s...which is what we'll be having here all day. Tomorrow is forecasted to have a high of 67 degrees with strong sunshine. Can they move the CMC track meet to a Wednesday? It would be nice.

On Tuesday the Jaguars girls golf team wraps up their Central Minnesota Conference season with a meet at the Howard Lake Greens golf course at 4:15. This is a meet that was originally scheduled on April 11.

A few noteables: Minnewaska's baseball team is ranked #20 in Class AA in the May 12th coaches poll. Albany is ranked #13, and Pierz is ranked #14. Interestingly, the Jaguars have defeated Pierz twice this season. Royalton, who lost to the Jaguars on May 5, was ranked #3 in Class A on the April 28th poll. I expect them to drop substantially in the next poll, as they also lost to Osakis last week.
On the fastpitch side, Maple Lake is ranked #4 in Class A. I did not see any other area fastpitch teams on the May 12th coaches polls in Class A or AA.

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