Friday Night Lights IV: Jaguars lose an unforgettable shootout (VIDEOS)

An unforgettable shoot out took place on the home gridiron tonight between our B-B-E Jaguars football team and the Upsala/Swanville Area Patriots. It was a second half I will never forget, but unfortunately, the Jaguars came up short in the end.

*Here's a video from early in the second quarter tonight. The Jaguars converted first downs and drove into U/SA territory before they stalled out on downs:

The video above features part of B-B-E's third offensive series of the game. The series started as the second quarter began with the Jaguars on their own 45-yard line. It was very good field position, and the Jaguars needed to capitalize. Gavin Kampsen and Easton Hagen both earned first downs, but the drive stalled out on fourth down on the U/SA 33-yard line with 6:54 left in the first half.

The Jaguars trailed 24-18 at halftime and then fell behind 30-18 in the third quarter. The Jaguars proceeded to score 22 unanswered points in one of the wildest third quarters of football that I've seen in my life. A total of 34 points were scored between both teams in the third quarter. Gavin Kampsen scored on a six-yard touchdown run with 2:54 left in the third quarter to put B-B-E ahead 40-30. I have a lot of notes to comb through before I can write up the basis of that 22-point scoring spree. The Jaguars led 40-36 at the start of the fourth quarter.

After falling behind 40-30, U/SA started their next series on their own 35-yard line with 2:50 left in the third quarter. They later scored with 16 seconds on the clock on a four-yard touchdown carry. They were stopped on a two-point conversion run by Easton Hagen and Maximus Hanson about three yards short on the right sideline. 

The tide turned heavily in U/SA's favor when they scored on a pick-six interception return of about 35 yards with 11:02 left in the fourth quarter. The two-point conversion was good to put the Patriots ahead 44-40.

The final dagger came when U/SA scored their final touchdown on a seven-yard run with 2:57 left in the game. The conversion play failed to leave the score at 50-40.

Final score: U/SA 50, B-B-E 40. The Jaguars fall to 2-2 overall, while U/SA is now 3-1 at the mid-way point of the regular season. For B-B-E, quarterback Luke Dingmann had 14-for-25 passing marks for 194 yards and three touchdowns. Gavin Kampsen led the ground game with 107 yards rushing. As a team, the Jaguars gained 160 yards on the ground. I'm 99.9% sure that the 90 points scored is a record for the B-B-E football field. The 48-37 win for Homecoming in 2017 is what I believe stands with the record for most points scored in a game (85).

U/SA gained 311 rushing yards and 136 passing yards. Levi Lampert was the receiver for all 136 yards, and he did so on three pass receptions.

Fun stats: through four games of the season, the Jaguars have 1,183 yards of offense with 733 yards coming on the ground.

Last week I got way ahead of myself, didn't look at the schedule, and somehow got Long Prairie-Grey Eagle in my head after the Benson game. Wrong! Wrong! Long Prairie-Grey Eagle is the Week Five opponent, and now the Jaguars set their sights on the Thunder as they gear up for the 34th annual B-B-E Homecoming football game. LP-GE was 0-3 heading into tonight's home game with state-ranked Kimball Area. *More on that below.

It was FABULOUS to see the B-B-E Pep Band back in action! They performed tonight out on the track in the northwest side of the football stadium. They performed at least during one football game in 2020, and I am excited to see them again next week for volleyball on Tuesday and football on Friday. 

More to come. Video is uploading.

**Here's video featuring the first touchdown scored by B-B-E's offense tonight. They scored with just over one minute remaining in the first quarter to narrow a deficit to the Patriots to 16-12:


The game was a knock-down brawl from start to finish. B-B-E started out with the upper hand when Ryan Jensen returned the opening kickoff for an 80-yard touchdown to give the Jaguars a 6-0 lead with just 15 seconds gone. U/SA recovered from that punch in the gut by scoring 16 unanswered points in the first quarter. B-B-E cut into the 16-6 deficit with a touchdown featured in the above video.

It's easy to look back and say, "If this, this, this or this didn't happen, we would have won" and twice big plays made a huge difference for the U/SA Patriots. The first big break they got was in the first quarter, when U/SA's Levi Lampert caught a pass on the sideline and raced to the end zone for an 83-yard touchdown. There's just one problem: the receiver stepped out of bounds before catching the pass. He was an ineligible receiver, but there was no call. The other big play that made a huge difference for U/SA was the interception return for a touchdown in the fourth quarter. Credit to the Patriots on that play.

The 48-minute shootout had both teams trading punches in a back-and-forth affair. The Jaguars were on fire in the third quarter with a 10-point lead. In a tip of the hat to the U/SA Patriots, it was impressive to witness their comeback win. I am frustrated by a few things that took place tonight. At one point in the third quarter, I had to walk out of the stadium and let my blood pressure get back down to a safe level...but that has to be set aside for now. One thing we can't forget is that U/SA is a fellow Section 4A team. We could very well see them in the playoffs.

I was emphatic and dead serious when I told some of the players at the conclusion of the game that they should be very proud of the game they played tonight. The Jaguars gave all the fight in the world right to the bitter end of a very tough loss. They showed they can play a very tough brand of football and can play with one of the top teams in Sub District III. The Patriots entered tonight's game with 126 points scored through the first three games. I can see them winning three of their last four games and going into playoffs with a 6-2 record. It's hard to say at this point how they'll fare against Kimball Area in Week Eight. To this point, no one has put up anything that resembles a competitive game against the Cubs.

**Update: Long Prairie-Grey Eagle fell to 0-4 on the season with a 57-6 loss in Long Prairie to No. 5-ranked Class 2A Kimball Area (4-0). The Cubs are having what is possibly the best season they've had in the 21st century. Both Kimball Area and No. 4-ranked BOLD are the lone undefeated teams in Mid-State District, Sub-District III.

Mid-State, Sub-District III scores in Week Four, September 24:
#4 BOLD 34, Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg 14 (at Murdock; the Fighting Saints led 14-13 in the second quarter before BOLD's Hunter Borer caught a 33-yard touchdown pass to take a 21-14 lead into halftime)

Kimball Area 57, Long Prairie-Grey Eagle 6 (at Long Prairie)

#8 Browerville 57, Benson 19 (at Browerville)
Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City 62, Maple Lake 14 (at Maple Lake; ACGC's Landon Blom had 221 rushing yards and 5 touchdowns while the Falcons out-rushed the Irish 369 to 37)

Area football scores for Week Four on September 24:
Holdingford 31, Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted 13
Pelican Rapids 28, Parkers Prairie 8
Montevideo 34, Minnewaska Area 28 (the Lakers fall to 0-4, while the Thunderhawks earned their first win)
Eden Valley-Watkins 42, Paynesville Area 36 (triple overtime at Paynesville - wow)
New London-Spicer 21, #10 Annandale 17 (at Annandale)
Osakis 52, Barnesville 50 (triple overtime at Osakis! Wow)
Morris Area/Chokio-Alberta 41, Melrose Area 13
Hancock 44, Wheaton/Herman-Norcross 28
West Central Area/Ashby 22, Hawley 13
Verndale 62, Ortonville 16
New York Mills 26, Pine River-Backus 12
Willmar 17, Sartell-St. Stephen 14
Becker 21, Hutchinson 12
Rockford 20, Pierz 12
Royalton 20, Sauk Centre 0

And about the B-B-E live stream tonight: YouTube wasn't cooperating...I talked to Billy Tensen about it after the game. They had a very strange issue with the livestream and were unable to get it going. It must have been some type of tech glitch when they type in the codes to set up the broadcast. I've been there. It sucks. They were very perplexed, because they've done this dozens and dozens of times on YouTube and never had a problem. The live streams worked flawlessly throughout the entire 2020-2021 school year.