Step IV: Jaguars ousted from playoffs

A very fired up B-B-E Jaguars volleyball team that was peaking at just the right time ran into a buzzsaw tonight at Pierz in the Section 5A final. Pine River-Backus rode the momentum of their five-set win against state-ranked Rush City on Thursday and defeated the Jaguars 3-1 to advance to the state tournament for the first time since 2006.

B-B-E was gunning for their first state trip since 2010.

Game one was a crazy barn burner. It was a game that got away from the Jaguars. It was a tough, tough loss after the Jaguars built a 21-16 lead. The Jaguars were ahead 22-19, but three straight hits went out of bounds to tie the game. A fourth hit just barely went out of bounds to put the Tigers ahead 23-22. It was razor close. TOUGH play.

Had the Jaguars won that game, this whole night would have likely turned out much different.

Game two went to the Jaguars in exciting fashion by a 25-21 score. Brittany Berge's kill made it 24-21 and gave the Jaguars the extra push they needed to take the set after the Tigers scored three points in a row to narrow down a 23-18 B-B-E lead.

*Below, game two action. At one point, Pine River-Backus had a 14-12 lead before the Jaguars went on a 7-0 run.


Game three was a true neck-and-neck affair through a 14-14 tie. Multiple lead changes and mostly just one-point leads either way. The Tigers got some traction later in the set and got ahead 24-17 before they had two errors to narrow it to five points. The Jaguars hit long to hand the game to the Tigers by a 25-19 score and put themselves into a 2-1 hole in sets.

The Tigers played mostly downhill in game four after the Jaguars got out to a very good start with an early 3-1 lead. The game got tied up 8-8, and soon the Tigers held a 15-12 lead. Morgan Gronli nailed a tip to the right line for a side out, and the Tigers had an error to make it a one-point game. Two Tigers ace serves put pressure on the Jaguars, down 18-14. Ahead 18-15, the Tigers rattled off a 6-0 run that was the nail in the coffin. Final score: Pine River-Backus 25, B-B-E 16.

That was all she wrote. B-B-E finishes the season 18-14 overall with a sub-section title to their credit. They most certainly got B-B-E back on the playoff map in Section 5A, and I know they will be a force to be reckoned with in 2018.

On a personal note: the eight seniors and the senior student manager will be deeply missed and not just by my sports department. I so badly wanted to watch them play on the big stage, the Xcel Energy Center, at the state tournament next week. They had all the firepower and the resolve needed to get there and do damage down there. It just wasn't happening. Volleyball, like any sport, can be a game of inches. Had a few more of their attacks gone down an inch or two this or that way - we'd be singing a different tune right now.

Then as the match heated up in Pierz, I'm checking my phone watching the live stats in the UMM- vs.-Northwestern college volleyball game in St. Paul, and seeing the Cougars lose game three 25-23 after it was tied 23-23...having my Cougars and my Jaguars lose at the same time has been very hard on me. For the UMM Cougars, they will await word on a possible at-large bid to the NCAA tournament after they just went toe-to-toe with the 12th-ranked team in all of Division III volleyball. I am no expert on Division III, so I have no idea what criteria needs to be met for that. I am biased, of course. If it was my call, the Cougars would be in! They have wins over ranked opponents, and for heaven's sakes they pushed the top-ranked team in the Central Region each time they met this season.

You put UMM and Northwestern together on a neutral site!!! And my money is on the Cougars!! *Update: after visiting with Marissa Ekness, I learned that the team is very much hoping and praying for an at-large berth to the NCAA tournament. Taken from the college's athletics website: "Minnesota Morris has a 26-8 overall record. They now sit and wait to see if they will be named as an at-large team to the NCAA Tournament. You can find out by watching the NCAA Selection Show Monday at 11:30 a.m. on ncaa.com."

Signing off for now. Today was a day that I will mark down as "conquered" - but that will need some explaining, and I'm not up for it right now.

As I said last weekend: I still love my Jaguars, and that will never change.

##ConquerEveryDay