Friday Night Lights XI: the Mighty have fallen

Hard.

The coaches talk to the Jaguars at halftime tonight in Sauk Centre. They tried to regroup and put up a much better fight in the 3rd quarter...but the penalty bug haunted them at the worst times and they could not recover.

When you're riding high on a tide of hard-earned momentum, falling hurts that much worse.

The 6th-ranked Jaguars football team was shell-shocked tonight by a supercharged performance delivered by Lester Prairie/Holy Trinity in the Section 4A championship. The Bulldogs led 14-6 at halftime and won by a final score of 29-12. They scored the first 14 points of the game and the first 15 points in the second half.

The Jaguars finish 9-2 overall, the best record ever for a B-B-E football team. They worked harder than I've ever seen a group of young men work in order to get where they got: 2 straight section finals and a conference runner-up finish to boot. They earned every last bit of glory they had and the wins from which it came from.

I could not be more happy about the enormous crowd of BBE fans that we had at this game. It was without a doubt the most fans we've ever turned out at a football game. In that I am extremely pleased. Kudos to everyone who made the trip!!!! The cheering was great too, although I wish we had more to cheer for during the game.

LP/HT takes an 8-3 record into the Class A state tournament. They play 11-0 Sleepy Eye St. Mary's next Saturday in Marshall. The Knights overcame a strong challenge by fellow Southern Minnesota Conference rival New Ulm Cathedral by a 41-26 score.

Other scores:
New London-Spicer 66, Annandale 46 (no kidding!)
Minneota/Lincoln HI 23, Paynesville Area 8 (Bulldogs high-flying offense was shut out)
Pine Island 29, Norwood-Young America 28 (NYA is B-B-E's season-opening opponent next year)
Pierz 32, St. Cloud Cathedral 21
Holdingford 32, Ottertail Central 14
Tracy-Milroy-Balaton 35, Adrian 14
Upsala/Swanville Area 35, Browerville 6 (Browerville was a #6 seed, their Cinderella season is over)
Dawson-Boyd 28, Wabasso 0