Elrosa Saints Legion team beats Meire Grove in an extra-inning game

The Saints won 4-3 tonight at Meire Grove for their second Stearns County League win of the week.

Coming next weekend - the 125th Bonanza Valley Days celebration

Coming to Brooten on July 8, 9, 10 is the annual Bonanza Valley Days celebration. Be sure to check out all the schedules and events in the June 30 and July 7 issues of the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper.

This year's slogan is "Small town Heaven in 2011" - Brooten is unique in the fact that they have three full days of activities, by far surpassing what any other town in similar size pulls off each summer.

As much as I am able to, I'll be adding random notes on the Bonanza Valley Days here throughout the next week.

Just released - the 2011 Jaguars football schedule

The Jaguars football team will open the 2011 campaign with a home game on September 2 against Section 4A rival Lester Prairie/Holy Trinity. The Jaguars are coming off of a 3-7 season in which they claimed runner-up honors in Section 4A.

Here is the full schedule:
9.2 LP/HT
9.9 @ Holdingford
9.16 HL-W-W
9.23 @ Rockford
9.30 @ Maple lake
10.7 Pierz
10.14 @ EV-W
10.19 Kimball Area

West Central Area pulled out of the Jaguars' schedule after becoming members of the Prairie Conference last year. The Prairie Conference essentially "takes care of their own" by being split into a north and south division. They have six conference games and then the two non-conference games are scheduled against teams from the other division. WCA will be a part of the large school (North) division of the Prairie Conference.

The Jaguars are lucky to have gotten LP/HT on the schedule going forward. Getting non-conference games scheduled are very difficult, and while at first glance a 76-mile one way drive may seem excessive, it beats the heck out of going to Ogilvie. In 2006, the Jaguars made the trip to far eastern Minnesota for their non-conference game after hosting Ogilvie in the 2005 season opener.

Also noteworthy, it's not rare to hear of teams going 100 miles or further for non-conference football games over the past few years.

Not only that, but the stakes are even higher with LP/HT being a section opponent. It's certainly one of the biggest games on the schedule for the Jaguars.

Elrosa Saints Legion baseball shuts out Richmond

The Saints rode the strong arm of Brady Weller (IP-6) to a shut out win over visiting Richmond tonight in a Stearns County League Legion game. Final: Elrosa 5, Richmond 0.

They are next in action on Thursday night this week, when they travel to Meire Grove for a 6:30 game.

Elrosa Legion baseball hosts Stearns County League game tonight

First pitch for the Elrosa Saints Legion baseball team is at 6:45 tonight.

More from Friday night's game in St. Martin

Amateur baseball results on June 26

Farming 12, Roscoe 8
Spring Hill 4, New Munich 3
Meire Grove 3, St. Martin 0

From Saturday: Farming 2, Lake Henry 1

Elrosa drops 5-1 game at St. Martin

The Elrosa Saints amateur baseball team lost 5-1 tonight in a Stearns County League game at St. Martin. The Martins improved to 5-3 in the SCL-South standings, while the Saints are now 4-6 in the SCL-North.

Elrosa's next game is next weekend, when they travel to Roscoe on Saturday, July 2 for a 1:30 game. They also play on Sunday at New Munich at 1:30.

Action late in the game at St. Martin on Friday night...

Tonight, Elrosa travels to St. Martin for a game under the lights of Ray Weber Field

First pitch is set for 8:15.

The Martins (4-3) are in third place in the Stearns County League-South, while the Saints (4-5) are a half game ahead of Greenwald to hold down second place in the SCL-North.

Elrosa Post Office meeting

Elrosa Post Office meeting, a set on Flickr.

Held on June 21, 2011 at Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Elrosa. A crowd of nearly 100 attended the meeting, which included four representatives of the U.S. Postal Service, to talk about the potential closure of the Elrosa Post Office.

Public input meeting draws crowd of over 90 to Sts. Peter and Paul Church in Elrosa

The turnout and discussion were outstanding at tonight's meeting in Elrosa, regarding the possible closure of the town's Post Office.

Below, Harry Zenzen quizzes Postal Service workers on the idea of sharing Postmasters between neighboring small towns...


Below, the Holdingford postmaster explains some information to the crowd near the beginning of the meeting...


More updates to follow. Read a full story on the issue in the June 23 issue of the Sauk Centre Herald.

Elrosa, MN

Via Flickr:
Photos from the vibrant and growing town of Elrosa, Minnesota. A meeting is coming on Tuesday night, June 21, at 6:30pm at city hall regarding the possible closure of the Elrosa Post Office.

While I'm at it, here's the final score from Saturday night's game in Elrosa: Spring Hill 7, Elrosa 1. The Saints, who fell to 4-4 in the Stearns County League-North with tonight's loss, travel to Spring Hill on Sunday for a 1:30 game.

Other area amateur baseball results on June 18:
Meire Grove 7, New Munich 2
Richmond 3, Farming 1
Regal 3, Eden Valley 2
Cold Spring 10, Regal 3

In other news...baseball state tournament update

In Class AA, St. Cloud Cathedral is in the state championship game after a come-from-behind effort in the semifinals, where they won 5-3 after trailing 3-0 through one inning.

In Class A, defending state champion Eden Valley-Watkins won 16-6 over Red Lake County Central in their semifinal game to advance to next week's title game.

The three state championship games will be held on Tuesday, June 21 at Target Field in Minneapolis. The Class A game begins at 12 noon.

SCL defeats County Line League 9-0

The Stearns County League shut out the County Line League team 9-0 in an amateur baseball All-Star game on Friday night at Green Lake Diamonds in Spicer.

The game, which was rain-delayed by over 1 hour and 15 minutes, was over early as the SCL all-stars punched out a 9-0 lead with one inning complete. SCL starting pitcher Scott Schlangen of St. Martin earned the win.

Barring a weather-related delay or cancellation, Elrosa will host Spring Hill tonight (Saturday) at 8:15pm for the first game of a weekend double-header with the neighboring rival Chargers.

Spring Hill enters the game with a 6-1 SCL-North record, with the Saints sitting in second place at 4-3.

Rain delays All-Star game on Friday night

Stearns County League vs. County Line League amateur baseball All-Star game is Friday night

The site will be Green Lake Diamonds in Spicer, with first pitch set for 8:15pm.

Knutson has a strong finish on day two of the state girls' golf meet

Senior Amy Knutson finished her fine career as a three-sport B-B-E Jaguar athlete with a strong finish at the Class A girls' golf state tournament.

After sitting in 40th place out of 88 golfers after day one, Knutson had a strong day two showing to move up to a five-way tie for 37th overall with a two-day score of 191 at Pebble Creek Golf Course in Becker.

Knutson shot a 48 on the front nine today and a 46 on the back.

She is a rare example of a student who was captain of four activities her senior year: girls' tennis, danceline, speech and girls' golf.

Osakis did a fine job representing Section 5A as a team, with the Silverstreaks coming in with a fourth-place showing. Their senior star Kelsey Ross won the individual state title by a single stroke with a two-day total of 160.

This Jaguars sports state tournament update is brought to you by:

What an effort, showing great courage and determination at the State Track and Field meet...

Read all about it in this week's June 16 issue of the Sauk Centre Herald, on page 1-B's sports column titled "Meeting the Challenge"...

Good luck to Amy Knutson today in the Class A state golf tournament

Senior Amy Knutson teed off today at 12:34pm at Pebble Creek Golf Course in Becker. It is day one of the Class A state golf tournament.

This is the second year in a row that Knutson has earned a state meet berth.

**Update at 8pm...Amy still has 3 holes left to golf. They had a major rain delay.

Check back later tonight to see how she fared on the links today.

**Update at 9:30pm...Amy had an outstanding first day at the state golf meet. She struggled early but then recovered nicely on the second round and finished with a first day score of 97. Her rank is 40th out of 88 girls heading into the final day of the meet.

Team wise, Section 5A champion Osakis sits in fourth place out of the eight teams competing for the title. The Silverstreaks' top four golfers shot a cumulative 373, while the top team from Lewiston-Altura shot a 330.

Sauk Centre's Laura Hintzen, also in her second straight state appearance, shot a 49 on the front nine and 43 on the back to come in for a three-way tie at 46th place out of 88 golfers in Class AA at Jordan.

Six-time state champion Minnewaska Area sits in third place overall with a 345. The top team in Class AA, Detroit Lakes, has a 329. Red Wing has a 330.

More from Friday night's Elrosa vs. Lake Henry game

**Very important meeting coming next week, Tuesday, June 21 in Elrosa

The Elrosa Post Office is in danger of being closed by the U.S. Postal Service. While it is no secret that the Postal Service in the United States is in financial trouble, it should also be no secret that the town of Elrosa is a bustling, vibrant small community in western Stearns County.

It defies logic to close the Post Office of a town that holds positive economic momentum and a recent influx of young families and residents. Over 25 businesses who operate in Elrosa would be severely impacted by the Post Office closure, not to mention the problems it would bring to all the residents in town and the rural area surrounding Elrosa.

All is not lost, however, as a public meeting is scheduled for next week where members of the public can voice their opinion on this matter. Please attend and show your support for Elrosa, next Tuesday, June 21 at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall. (Located adjacent to the Fire Hall in the heart of town.)

U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, Congressman Collin Peterson, Senator Joe Gimse and Representative Paul Anderson have all been notified about this and are aware of the June 21 meeting.

Remember, the world belongs to those who show up and take control of their destinies, not to those who sit on the sidelines and complain from a distance.

Elrosa Saints stung by Lake Henry in a 5-4 loss

On a cool, wet evening in Elrosa, the Saints amateur baseball team lost 5-4 to visiting Lake Henry in a Stearns County League match up.

The Saints fall to 4-3 in the SCL-North, while the Lakers improve to 6-2 overall. The next game for Elrosa is next weekend, Saturday, June 18, when they host Spring Hill at 8:15. The following day (June 19) they travel to Spring Hill for a 1:30 game. The Saturday night game is a make up from May 1.

Below, a clip from the game...


More coming on Sunday morning.

This Elrosa Saints amateur baseball team update is brought to you by:

Coming Friday night - Elrosa Saints host Lake Henry

First pitch between the Saints and Lakers is at 8:15 p.m.

Both teams sit in second place in their respective division of the Stearns County League. Elrosa is 4-2, while Lake Henry is 5-2.

Spring Hill and Richmond both lead the two SCL divisions with 5-1 records.

Browerville baseball team advances to third section final in last 4 seasons

In an elimination game tonight in Section 5A, Matt Middendorf's Browerville Tigers baseball team defeated East Central 10-9 at Putz Field in St. Cloud to advance to the section championship series for the third time since 2008.

The Tigers (16-5) will have to defeat Eden Valley-Watkins (19-2) two times to advance to the state tournament.

In Section 6AA, Albany's fine season ended at the hands of Little Falls in an elimination game. The Flyers knocked out the Huskies with a 6-0 win.

22nd annual Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa graduation ceremony held today

A photo gallery with a handful of photos from the graduation ceremony has been uploaded to the Sauk Centre Herald website: http://saukherald.mycapture.com

Stearns County League results this weekend

Stearns County League scores over this past weekend, June 4-5:
Lake Henry 3, Midway 2
Richmond 11, Meire Grove 6
Spring Hill 13, Farming 3 (8 innings)
Roscoe 2, New Munich 0
Roscoe 4, Meire Grove 0
Spring Hill 8, New Munich 6

It's not a complete list. Elrosa ended up sweeping Greenwald, as they faced one another on Saturday as well as Friday night. I don't have the score from the second game yet.

Coming on Sunday: the 22nd annual Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa graduation

The 22nd graduation ceremony of Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa schools will be at 1:30 on Sunday at the B-B-E High School.

The first joint graduation of the paired Belgrade-Elrosa and Brooten high school was in June of 1990. While the schools were paired for all athletics in 1988-89, in 1989 both schools held separate graduation ceremonies.

More from the Section 5A track and field meet - Plus more area playoff results

Below, the 200 dash race at sections...


You can view almost 100 photos from the Section 5A meet featuring Jaguar track athletes at the Sauk Centre Herald website: http://saukherald.mycapture.com

Area baseball post-season results on June 2:
Eden Valley-Watkins defended its Sub-Section 5A-West title from a year ago, after the #1 seeded Eagles defeated #2 seed Browerville 12-4 on Thursday night in Cold Spring. Both the Eagles and Tigers advance to next week's Section 5A Final Four round, which runs next week (June 6, 7, 9) in St. Cloud.

In Sub-Section 6AA-East, top-seeded and state ranked St. Cloud Cathedral beat #2 seed Little Falls 16-8 in the championship game.

In Sub-Section 6AA-West, sixth-seeded Melrose Area continued its stellar playoff run by squeezing past top-seeded Albany 3-2 in the championship game. The Dutchmen had defeated #2 seed Paynesville Area 12-1 in five innings the night before.

In Sub-Section 5AA-West, Maple Lake (#3 seed) fell to #1 seed Dassel-Cokato 8-7. The Irish had dropped two tough teams out of the Mississippi 8 Conference out of the playoffs in the first two rounds, doing a fine job of representing the Central Minnesota Conference in the process.

Fastpitch results from the Section 5A Final Four round:
Elimination game: Barnum 13, Upsala 3 (5 innings)...then Isle 15, Barnum 5. In the winner's bracket semifinal, Osakis beat Isle 9-6. In the 5A championship round, Osakis needed only one win over Barnum out of two games, and the second game was never needed after the Silverstreaks remained unbeaten on the season and won 6-1 in the first game.

Fastpitch results from the Section 5AA championship series:
Maple Lake needed to win only one game in a best-of-two series over Park Center on Thursday night. Unfortunately for the Irish, their third state tournament trip in the past four years did not materialize. Maple Lake lost game one 7-2 and then game two 11-1. They still had a fine season, something that they have grown accustomed to under veteran head coach Tim Knudson.

Out west in Sub-Section 6A-South baseball, the Hancock Owls entered the playoffs as the number eight seed with an unremarkable 4-13 overall record. They got hot at the right time and knocked out the top seed (Wheaton/Herman-Norcross) 6-4 in eight innings in the quarterfinals. In the semifinals, the Owls beat fourth-seeded Hillcrest Lutheran Academy 3-1. Hancock then lost to Brandon-Evansville 13-11 in the sub-section championship game. Both teams advance to the Section 6A Final Four round. Hancock (6-14) is coached by 2004 Melrose Area graduate Brandon Welle.

Elrosa Saints drub Greenwald tonight

The Saints improved to 3-2 in the Stearns County League-North division with a 13-4 win over Greenwald on the home diamond tonight.

Elrosa travels to Greenwald on Sunday for a 1:30 p.m. game.

Senior Amy Knutson qualifies for Class A state golf tournament - Jaguars track and field compete at Section 5A

Senior Grant Bell ran to a sixth place finish with a personal (career) best time of 10:24 in the two-mile run today at St. John's University...

None of the Jaguars track and field team members advanced to state, but Kinlee Swanson and Grant Bell both earned medals by finishing in the top six in the Long Jump (5th-Swanson) and 3200 run (6th-Bell).

Grant Bell, in the final race of his prep sports career at B-B-E, demolished his one-week old personal record in the 3200 meter run with a new best time of 10:24. His old record, set at last week's District 20 meet, was 10:36.

Kinlee Swanson, only an eighth grader, competed in four events for the Jaguars at Section 5A. She ran in the 100 and 200 open races, the 4x200 relay race and also competed in the long jump. The relay team (which also included Katelyn Heinze, Mackenzie Winter and Kelsey Heinsius) broke their season record by a few hundredths of a second, and although they ran to an 8th place finish they can go into the off-season quite satisfied with their accomplishments this year. All four are 8th through 10th graders.
Below, Kinlee's flight in the 200 open prelimaries...


Senior Amy Knutson shot a 93 to tie for third place overall at the Section 5A girls' golf meet in Benson today. Knutson advances to the Class A state golf tournament for the second year in a row.

Four other Jaguars golfers also competed at sections but did not advance.

Area baseball playoff results on June 1:
Albany 7, Rocori 1 (Huskies dethrone the defending state champion Spartans)
Melrose Area 12, Paynesville Area 1 (talk about a discrepancy in baseball talent between the West Central North and West Central South Conferences!
Maple Lake 8, Zimmerman 5 (sub-section semifinal in Section 5AA)

Hats off to the Holdingford Huskers track and field program, as their boys' team won the Section 5A title on Wednesday. The Huskers piled up 58.5 team points, beating Dassel-Cokato (a much larger school) who had 57.5 points.

More coming on Thursday night...

This Jaguars sports playoff update is brought to you by:

Area playoff results on May 31

Section 5A, sub-section baseball results:
Browerville 6, St. John's Prep 2
Eden Valley-Watkins 5, Upsala/Swanville Area 0

Section 5A Final Four fastpitch results:
Osakis 9, Isle 6 (winner's bracket semifinal)
Barnum 13, Upsala 3 (5 innings, elimination game)
Barnum 15, Isle 5 (elimination bracket final)

Section 6AA Final Four fastpitch results:
Albany 2, Pierz 1 (winner's bracket semifinal)
Rocori 5, Holdingford 3 (elimination game)
Rocori 11, Pierz 2 (elimination game)

Sub-Section 6AA-West baseball quarterfinals:
Albany 11, Sauk Centre 1 (6 innings, 1 vs. 8 seed)
Melrose Area 8, Minnewaska Area 4 (6 seed upsets the 3 seed)
Rocori 4, Litchfield 3
Paynesville Area 3, New London-Spicer 1

Sub-Section 6AA-East baseball semifinals:
St. Cloud Cathedral 10, Holdingford 0 (6 innings) (a tough ending to the season for the CMC co-champion Huskers)
#2 seed Little Falls 6, #3 seed Long Prairie-Grey Eagle 4

Sub-Section 5AA-West baseball quarterfinals:
Maple Lake 6, Becker 5 (senior Mitch Wurm's RBI-single in the ninth inning won the game for the #3 seed Irish, who improved to 11-9; Wurm had two hits in the game and won the game on the mound in relief)
Watertown-Mayer 6, Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted 3 (5 seed upsets the 4 seed)

Section 5AA fastpitch championship series:
Maple Lake 7, Park Center 5 (winner's bracket)
Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted 5, Delano 3 (elimination game)
Park Center 4, HL-W-W 0 (elimination game)

Random notes: Holdingford's baseball team won a share of the Central Minnesota Conference title this year for the first time since 2005. Holdingford's fastpitch team won the CMC title for the first time in school history. Maple Lake's fastpitch team defeated the defending Class AA state champion Park Center in convincing fashion. If the Irish (19-4) defeat Park Center once more on Thursday, they will punch their ticket to the state tournament. The Irish fastpitch team last made the state field in 2009, when they finished runner-up in Class A for the second straight year.

A few action scenes from this past season's Jaguars fastpitch, baseball

Below, photos of three sophomores in action for the Jaguars...the fastpitch team especially benefited from Class of 2013 talent. The future looks bright for both the Jaguars baseball and fastpitch teams.



Both the Jaguars fastpitch and Jaguars baseball teams have completed their seasons and have hung up the cleats while donning B-B-E uniforms for the final time in 2011. Both teams won their playoff openers, and the baseball team took a four-game winning streak into its sub-section quarterfinal game against #1 seed and defending state champion Eden Valley-Watkins.

Time to gear up for a big track meet!