Step V! ! ! ! Jaguars FINAL-FOUR BOUND! (VIDEOS!)

That's right! BELIEVE IT!

For just the third time in school history, the B-B-E Jaguars volleyball team is Final Four bound at the state tournament! This is a very special place for ANY team to be in ANY high school sport!

JUST FOR FUN! How about a throwback to FOUR years ago! Let's go back to the 2018 Class 1A state tournament, when the No. 3-seeded Jaguars defeated New Life Academy of Woodbury in the quarterfinal round: https://bbejaguars.blogspot.com/2018/11/step-v-win.html. Fun fact: one of the senior hitters on that team, Emily Knight, is now shining on a Top-25 Division II Colorado School of Mines Orediggers team in Boulder.

**Here's the video that features the first serve of the night plus the opening stage of game one:


**Here's a video from late in game three tonight! This was exciting!


After the tape began rolling, the Gators scored two straight points to close B-B-E's lead to 20-18. The Jaguars proceeded to score 5 of the next 7 points to claim a 25-20 win and go up 2 sets to 1.

LET'S TALK STATS:
As a team, the Jaguars had an excellent night with 95.8 percent serving. They had 8 ace serves compared to 3 by the Gators. B-B-E's serve receive was 96.1 percent compared to B/G-MR's 91.3 percent. This was a huge factor in the win. B-B-E's attack was relentless across four games, and they finished with 62 kills compared to 44 by the Gators. Ava Mueller had 22 kills, Brooklyn Fischer had 18 kills and Abby Berge had 12 kills for three Jaguars hitting in double figures. B-B-E hit at a 20 percent clip compared to B/G-MR's 15.9 percent hitting. Setter Kylie Weller piled up 57 set assists on 131 total sets, and she served 14-of-15 with two aces while adding 11 digs.

Up next: the Jaguars (26-5) play in the Class 1A state semifinals at 1 p.m. at Xcel Energy Center on Friday (tomorrow) against top-seeded Minneota. The Vikings (32-3) sent New Life Academy of Woodbury (21-12) to the consolation bracket with a 3-1 win in their quarterfinal match tonight. Game scores were 25-13, 23-25, 25-13, 25-14. Minneota had 19 percent hitting on 174 total attacks and was led by Emma Bottelberghe's 15 kills on crazy high 36.1 percent hitting (just 2 hitting errors on 36 attacks). Also in double figures for kills was Ireland Stassen, the daughter of B-B-E Class of 1996 graduate Sarah (Illies) Stassen. Ireland also had a monster hitting night with just two errors on 32 attacks for a 31.2 percent hitting mark. She was their leading setter with 22 set assists, and she had 27 digs plus two solo blocks and one block assist. Minneota's libero, Lyzha Sussner, also had 27 digs plus two ace serves.

In other side of the Class 1A bracket, No. 2-seeded Mayer Lutheran won 3-1 against Ely, while No. 3-seeded Mabel-Canton swept Pine River-Backus 25-22, 25-20, 25-15. Mayer Lutheran and M-B will meet tomorrow in the 3 p.m. state semifinal match at Xcel. I just dug up more from this bracket, and game scores between Mayer Lutheran and Ely were 25-15, 24-26, 25-12, 25-11. This was Ely's first loss of the season after coming into the tournament 29-0 overall.

I've added a couple more videos to the last blog post. You may have seen them, but feel free to go back and check them out! I am signing off now at 11:30 so I can get a proper night's sleep. Tomorrow will bring its own set of challenges with a much earlier departure time from Jaguar Country. It's another BIG BIG DAY for my sports department! Thank you to Tiyana Schwinghammer for joining my photography crew!!!! This was a TERRIBLY EXCITING DAY!!! Let's do it again tomorrow!!