On the drive home from tonight's playoff game, my eight-year old daughter said from my Buick's back seat, "I miss Mr. and Mrs. Gossen."
My quick reply to her was, "Yes, I miss them too, but when good people leave, it just means that everyone else has to get better." (We were referring to former elementary principal Rick Gossen and elementary Title I teacher Shannon Gossen, who now work in southwestern Minnesota.)
What I just described can be mirrored right onto the athletic playing field or court, as sports teams often are faced with the temporary and even the long-term absence of players due to injury or other reasons. I don't disclose personal information like a player's injury on this sports blog - I never have unless specifically directed to do so by a kid's family - but as followers of our football team know, tonight they played without senior wide receiver Jamison Reed. I have only been told that he may play on in the second round of playoffs, and that's all I have on that. The net result of one of your key players missing from the starting lineup is that every other member of the team has to be better. You have to put it in your mind that you will give that extra effort to make the team better and overcome what's missing.
Facing an inspired, focused and determined Long Prairie-Grey Eagle team tonight for the quarterfinal round of the Section 4A playoffs, the B-B-E Jaguars football team found themselves in a position where every player on the team had to improve. This self-improvement in the name of making the team better took place through all 48 minutes of the contest. They were in the fight of their lives tonight. The Jaguars and Thunder traded punches and counterpunches all game long. It wasn't until the fourth quarter when the Jaguars scored the lone touchdown of the second half to break a 14-14 halftime tie. The game winner came on a 28-yard touchdown reception by Luke Illies from Luke Dingmann with 4:22 left in the game. Wyatt Lewis ran in the two-point conversion to give the Jaguars a bona fide one-score lead.
Final score: B-B-E 22, LP-GE 14.
Your whole life in the workforce you work through situations where people move around or switch jobs or change positions or get promotions. Change is constant. How you deal with change and how you deal with adversity generally sets apart the winners and the losers. That's life.
NEXT: AND THIS IS IMPORTANT! The Jaguars move on to the Section 4A semifinals, which will take place at 2 p.m. on Saturday, October 29 right back on our home field again. SPREAD THE WORD! We need a huge, HUGE hometown crowd there! The opponent will be loaded-for-bear, take-no-prisoners No. 3-seeded Upsala/Swanville Area. The U/SA Patriots won 50-28 tonight on their home field against visiting Benson to improve to 5-4 on the season. MAKE NO MISTAKE. The U/SA Patriots will lay it all on the field in an attempt to repeat what took place on the same field in the same round back in 2017. I'm not going to delve into what happened that day way back then, but this section semifinal game is going to be a terrific football game. The lead may change hands more than once. It will be a knock down, drag out fight from start to finish. More on that later.
In another Section 4A game tonight, the No. 5-seeded Browerville Tigers traveled to No. 4-seeded Parkers Prairie and won 24-7. The Tigers have their sights set now on top-seeded Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg, who had a first-round bye and did not play tonight. Those two teams will square off in Murdock this Saturday in the other semifinal game.
*Here's a video from the first quarter tonight after the Jaguars tied the game at 8-8:
GAME NOTES from tonight's LP-GE game:
B-B-E's defense played inspired ball throughout the game and especially in the second half when it mattered most. For the game, they recorded six tackles for a loss. Three players were in on 9 or more tackles: Maximus Hanson (6 solos, 5 assisted), Hayden Sobiech (5 solos, 4 assisted) and Carson Gilbert (5 solos, 6 assisted). Altogther, a total of 17 Jaguars earned at least one tackle or assisted tackle. After falling behind 22-14, the Thunder started their 12th drive of the game on their own 30 but committed a holding penalty. This created a 1st-and-27 possession. Quarterback Tye Urman carried for 17 yards on first down, and LP-GE got a 5-yard catch on second down. They ran a counter play that yielded zero yards on third down. On 4th-and-5 with the chips down, Urman was flushed and ran far to the left. He had great momentum and appeared as though he would convert. B-B-E's Owen Paulson had other things in mind, as he stopped Urman cold and three yards short of the first down marker. B-B-E ball! The Jaguars took over on downs with 2:17 left in the game. They later punted, however, and LP-GE had 1:52 left on the clock for their 13th possession of the game. First down had an incomplete pass, and second down had Urman losing two yards on Maximus Hanson's tackle for a loss. The Thunder lost 4 yards on third down, and fourth down resulted in another incomplete pass. The resulting turnover on downs came with 1:24 on the clock. The Jaguars were able to take a knee twice and ride out the clock for a back-to-back playoff-opening win.
The Jaguars were held to less than 100 rushing yards for the second game in a row...but just barely. They totaled 97 rushing yards to go with 100 passing yards. LP-GE rushed for 158 yards and had 62 passing yards. Quarterback Tye Urman was 8-for-19 in the game.
*Here's a video from late in the first quarter tonight, when B-B-E scored with 2:06 on the clock to gain the lead:
In Section 5A tonight, top-seeded BOLD won 48-6 against visiting and No. 8-seeded Lac qui Parle Valley. In Section 5AA, Kimball Area ended Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City's season with a 40-0 win. In Section 4AA, Maple Lake finished 0-9 after they lost tonight to St. Agnes (at Concordia-St. Paul) by a 35-0 score.
More to come **on Wednesday afternoon. I need some rest! Volleyball playoffs begin on Wednesday night!!
