Step III: BACK-TO-BACK! Wrestlers advance to the state tournament! (VIDEO)

The B-B-E Jaguars wrestling team won their second straight Section 5A championship today with a 45-17 win over No. 2-seeded and No. 5-ranked Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City. A huge crowd of Jaguar fans made the short trip to Benson high school to cheer them on throughout the entire afternoon. It was fantastic!!!!

A-C-GC finishes a superb season with a 29-7 overall record. Their bid for state came up short in the section finals.

The Jaguars (19-1) will compete at the state team tournament on Thursday, March 3 at Xcel Energy Center. State tournament seeding will be posted on Tuesday, February 22. I'm trying to see who else won section titles to advance to state in Class 1A. Stay tuned.

**Here's Coach Mueller talking about the two huge wins following the section finals at Benson:


Click over to the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website for additional coverage of today's action (short link): https://bit.ly/3LHMi0Z.

In Section 4A, Kimball Area blazed its way through three opponents like a hot knife through butter to advance to state. They are the defending state champions. The Cubs beat Norwood-Young America 78-0 in the quarterfinals and then leveled Eden Valley-Watkins 70-7 in the semis. In the Section 4A finals, Kimball Area defeated No. 2-seeded Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted 55-8.

Dover-Eyota, who was seeded No. 3 for the playoffs, has won the Section 1A championship. Today at the Mayo Civic Center in Rochester, they beat No. 1-seeded Chatfield 33-30.

In Section 2A, top-seeded Maple River/United South Central advances to state after beating No. 2-seeded Medford 42-22 in the section finals at St. Clair high school.

In Section 3A, Jackson County Central blasted No. 3-seeded Tracy-Milroy-Balaton 60-6 to claim the championship and clinch a repeat trip to the state tournament.

Royalton, runners-up in the Central Minnesota Conference, defended their top seed while repeating as Section 7A champions with a 40-23 win over No. 3-seeded Holdingford. I'm missing just the Section 6A and Section 8A results. Now it's time to set aside wrestling for the evening and take the family to Open Gym at the high school! Keep this on your calendar: the Section 5A individual tournament is next Saturday, February 26 at Minnewaska Area high school.

In Section 6A, West Central Area/Ashby/Brandon-Evansville won the championship to advance to the state tournament. WCA/A/BE won 66-12 over New York Mills in the semifinals and then 48-21 against Bertha-Hewitt/Verndale/Parkers Prairie in the finals, which were held at NYM high school today. This is their first state tournament trip since 2017, when they placed fourth.

I saw this late on Saturday night: the River Lakes Stars girls' hockey team avenged two regular season losses to Fergus Falls and defeated the Otters 3-1 in the Section 6A championship on Saturday to advance to the Class 1A state tournament. River Lakes includes B-B-E in their varsity hockey co-op, although it does not have B-B-E girls on its varsity roster at this time. I was unable to find the boys' hockey varsity roster. Fergus Falls beat River Lakes 1-0 in Richmond on November 30 and then 5-1 on its home ice on December 21 to sweep the Central Lakes Conference series. The Otters were co-champions of the CLC with Brainerd/Little Falls. River Lakes takes a 16-12 record into the state tournament.

Fergus Falls (19-6-2) was the number one seed and was ranked No. 8 in the latest Let's Play Hockey rankings. The Stars were the No. 2 seed in Section 6A. They advance to state unseeded and will face top-seeded and No. 1-ranked Warroad (23-3-1) in the quarterfinals on Wednesday this week at 6 p.m. at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

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