Step III: subsection finals closing out (VIDEO)

We are closing out on the sub-section championship game at Nevis high school. With 41 seconds left, the Tigers connected on two bonus free throws to push their lead to 57-46. Then with 26 seconds left, Ryan Schwinghammer hit a shot at point blank range in the lane to cut it to a nine-point game.

More to come.

And with 18 seconds left, the Tigers got two more bonus free throws for a 59-48 lead. B-B-E quickly got down court, and Schwinghammer put the book end on this game with a baseline shot with six seconds left.

Final score: No. 1-seeded Nevis 59, No. 2-seeded B-B-E 50. The Jaguars finish another excellent season on the court! They went 16-5 this winter. The runner-up finishes in the conference and sub-section are both tough to swallow but also something they can look back on and be proud of. Hurting the Jaguars tonight was 0-for-9 three-point shooting. That itself made it very difficult to counter the Nevis attack. Freshmen Luke Dingmann led the Jaguars with 17 points, including a stellar five-for-five performance at the free throw line. The Jaguars missed just one of 11 free throw attempts in the game. Also in double figures was Ryan Schwinghammer with 12 points. Rounding out the scoring for B-B-E: Kaden Pieper 9, Will VanBeck 6, Gavin Kampsen 4, Peyton Winter 2.

B-B-E has now played in the sub-section championship game six out of the last seven seasons (2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021). That's incredible! Very few teams can say that.

More to come.

**Here's a seven-minute video clip shot during the opening stage of the first half tonight:


More to come later tonight! It is time to point the ol' 2006 minivan south!!!! 

We are extremely proud of this team!!!

**Update from Clarissa at a pit stop... the Upsala Cardinals defeated Barnum 66-56 tonight in the East subsection final. Upsala, the second seed in the east half of Section 5A, plays Nevis in the section title game on Friday night this week at Wadena-Deer Creek high school.

Nevis, co-champions of the Northland Conference with Cass Lake-Bena, takes a 19-2 record into the section finals. Upsala is 15-6.

Nevis was playing in their fifth straight sub-section championship game. They lost in the subsection semifinals in 2016, but every year since they've advanced to the finals. They went to state in 2016-2017 but went 0-2 at the big show. Cromwell-Wright beat them in the subsection finals in 2018 and 2019.

I saw that Sauk Centre's season ended tonight in the Section 6AA semifinals...Coach Kuefler's Mainstreeters lost to a high-octane Annandale team 61-30. He and his team should be very proud of their play down the season stretch, as they won five of six games going into playoffs. The section quarterfinal 53-50 win at Mora was certainly a highlight of the season. Sauk Centre finished 12-9 overall.

Area boys' basketball playoff scores on March 24:
Minneapolis North 60, Litchfield 38
Glencoe-Silver Lake 92, Jordan 81
Hancock 46, West Central Area 40 OT (the Pheasant Conference co-champions squared off in an epic battle at the Owls' gym)
Mahnomen/Waubun 75, New York Mills 72
Upsala 66, Barnum 56
Perham 55, Barnesville 40
Fergus Falls 61, Warroad 38
Melrose Area 64, Albany 61 (What a tremendous border battle in Section 6AA!))
Annandale 61, Sauk Centre 30

THANK YOU again to Bonanza Valley State Bank for being a premier supporter of the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper's Jaguar Sports extended playoff coverage! BVSB of Brooten stepped up and provided extra advertising in the March 25 issue of our newspaper. This brought us two extra pages of color! We added color photos featuring the girls' basketball team, including a poster-sized reprint of our team photo.