Friday Night Lights IX: Jaguars pull off a win in an ugly, ugly game

The Jaguars' offense could never get on track tonight against an inspired Kimball defense.

Oh, boy...the worst happened to be when Kimball scored first. The #7-seeded team scored first on a #2-seeded team, which was embarrassing. The Cubs had a 7-0 lead at the start of the 2nd quarter. The game didn't get much better from there, but luckily, the Jaguars football team was just barely better than Kimball Area tonight and came out on top by a 21-13 score.

Just when it appeared as though the Jaguars had things put back together, and the ship straightened out and were ready to redeem themselves, they let the Kimball Cubs score on a fake punt play when they let a receiver get loose down the right sideline and scamper in with a 65-yard touchdown pass. That was on the first series of the second half, and fortunately Trey Heinsius blocked the PAT kick to leave the score at B-B-E 14, Kimball 13 with lots of game left.

The Jaguars (8-1) put up another touchdown with 2:19 left in the 3rd quarter and hung on for the win. They now have 8 wins in a season for only the second time in school history (1988)....but it won't really mean a thing if they come out flat on Saturday night and let Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City destroy them on our home field.

There's a lot more to say about tonight's game, and I'll get to all of it eventually, but one thing that stands out in my mind: if you play just good enough to win, you could easily get beat. That's almost what transpired tonight...the Jaguars (barely) played good enough to beat an 0-8 team.

Noteworthy: B-B-E's football field was incredible this week...I'd rate the soil/sod conditions "great" for tonight's game, which says a lot about how well-built it is after it has taken a beating in the last couple of weeks of rain and wear and tear. Not far to the west, Minnewaska Area learned a sobering lesson about how bad it is if your football field is not well-built and not well-drained. Their Veterans Field was partially-underwater as of Monday afternoon this week, and last night Minnewaska officials decided to move their quarterfinal game to the college in Morris. Their "home field advantage" was essentially wiped out by Mother Nature. Sauk Centre found an opening and hammered the Lakers 40-7 tonight. Ouch.

I don't even want to think about what would've happened tonight if we were unable to play on our home field.

Other interesting tidbits: tonight's game lasted 2 hours and 47 minutes for regulation play. B-B-E's offense churned out 153 rushing yards and 138 passing yards against Kimball; Adrian Belden and Jackson Gregory both had quarterback sacks; the Jaguars have scored 282 points this year against 142 points given up. Austin Kollman has 1,360 rushing yards through 9 games.

Check out the scoreboard below. The Central Minnesota Conference went 6-2 in playoff openers tonight, with one of them (B-B-E) ending another conference team's season. Talk about a tough conference! Wow! Down in Section 2AAA, sixth-seeded Rockford Area defeated third-seeded Minneapolis Henry/West Metro by a 32-12 score!!! (Henry/West Metro is a fellow conference team with Minneapolis North.)

**For a limited time, here's a short clip from the fourth quarter tonight...it gives a little glimpse into how the game played out and the struggles the Jaguars had:


**Up next: the Section 4A semifinals this Saturday at 7:00pm...back at the B-B-E high school football stadium. The opponent will be A-C-GC, a team that's 7-2 after throttling their quarterfinal opponent tonight in Grove City. PLEASE, PLEASE spread the word and bring as many friends, family and neighbors as you can to this game. I cannot stress how important it is that we have a HUGE hometown crowd at this game. It is only the SECOND time in B-B-E school history that we've hosted a section semifinal playoff game! (Last and only other time was in 1997, when the Jaguars beat MACCRAY 29-14 in the Section 5AA semifinals.) Folks, this is HUGE stuff!!! The Jaguars need your support! We need a large hometown crowd cheering them on the entire game.

Section 4A football scores on October 22:
Minneapolis North 48, Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg 6 (#1 beats #8)
Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City 48, Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart 6 (#3 beats #6)
Lester Prairie/Holy Trinity 30, Mayer Lutheran 29!!!!! (#5 beats #4)

Area football scores for the playoff openers:
Sauk Centre 40, Minnewaska 7!! (a pretty big upset in my opinion...Mainstreeters turned their season around)
Paynesville 70, Yellow Medicine East 6 (593 yards of offense for the Bulldogs)
Browerville 29, Pillager 6
Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted 26, Brooklyn Center 22
Holdingford 40, Staples-Motley 0
Pierz 48, Pine City 6
Maple Lake 39, Spectrum 0
Melrose Area 41, Morris Area/Chokio-Alberta 15
Royalton 47, New York Mills 6
Upsala/Swanville 34, West Central Area 0
Pelican Rapids 49, Osakis 30
Ottertail Central 47, Long Prairie-Grey Eagle 8
MACCRAY 46, Ortonville 14
BOLD 68, Eden Valley-Watkins 14
Minneota/Lincoln HI 44, Benson 0
**Rockford Area 32, Minneapolis Henry/West Metro 12! (#6 seed beats #3 seed!)
Albany 34, Fergus Falls 21


I will be updating this at least through 1:00am tonight....................stay tuned!

A half hour after the game is over, and I still can barely move my hands/fingers...tough to type!