Boys' basketball at NLS (VIDEOS, UPDATES)

Updates to this blog post are added on Sunday morning...time to condense and summarize and speed things up as I try to catch up and prepare for a 14- to 16-page newspaper issue that will be published on Wednesday morning! Yikes! SUNDAY is nuts: church, then the Pinewood Derby (Scouts) in Belgrade and the Just For Kix winter dance show in Brooten...BUSY!

It is a battle royale tonight at New London! Wow...with 7 minutes to go in the game, the B-B-E Jaguars boys' basketball team has a small 60-56 lead.

Final: Jaguars 72, Wildcats 61. Believe it! Luke Dingmann had a banner night with 29 points. As a team, the Jaguars shot at a hot 47 percent clip from the floor while canning a whopping 8 three-pointers. This helped overcome solid 39 percent field goal shooting by NL-S, who falls to 5-2 overall.

Next: with four wins in a row, the No. 10-ranked Jaguars (7-2) host Minnewaska Area (1-11, 0-6) in a second straight border battle. That game is on Monday at 7 p.m. in Brooten.

This is such an awesome way to cap off an incredible week in Jaguar Country!!

This school year keeps leaving me speechless, in a good way.

I will get back to blogging after 10:00 p.m. 

*With a recap of what went down near the end of Friday's boys' basketball game, here's Winter Sports Show No. 12 of this season:


Central Minnesota Conference boys' basketball scores on January 13:
Eden Valley-Watkins 49, Paynesville Area 41 (EV-W takes over first place alone in the CMC)
Kimball Area 79, Holdingford 59
Royalton 49, A-C-GC 48

Area boys' basketball scores on January 14:
No. 2-ranked Cass Lake-Bena 71, No. 5-ranked Henning 70
Browerville 63, Barnum 46
Willmar 59, Jordan 46
Park Christian 62, Hillcrest Lutheran Academy 58

Area boys' basketball scores on January 13:
Browerville 82, Duluth Marshall 45
New London-Spicer 74, Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted 39
Mountain Iron-Buhl 98, North Woods 62
Lakeview 78, MACCRAY 54
BOLD 88, Cedar Mountain 59
Henning 68, New York Mills 33
Russel-Tyler-Ruthton 73, Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg 44 (K-M-S falls to 9-3 overall; No. 6-ranked R-T-R is 9-0)
Underwood 88, Hancock 87 OT!

**Here's a video from the opening round of the Paynesville invitational yesterday:


Brett DeRoo ultimately took third place at 145 pounds, part of a terrific day of wrestling by our No. 5-ranked Jaguars on their way to a first-place team finish. Six Jaguars took either first or second place!! The wrestlers are next in action on Tuesday next week when they travel to the Osakis triangular that also includes Eden Valley-Watkins.

Let's go back to Thursday...here's the last 33 seconds of the first half at Royalton:


Next for the girls' basketball team: the No. 6-ranked (QRF) and No. 15-ranked (Minnesota Basketball News) Jaguars (8-2, 3-1) host Upsala (5-7) in a non-conference game on Monday at the high school in Belgrade.

**Here's the full clip of the National Anthem, the starter introductions, tip-off and opening minute of the Friday night game:


Area girls' basketball scores on January 14:
No. 18-ranked Barnum 62, Browerville 48 (at Barnum)
Nevis 32, No. 7-ranked Braham 31 (at Braham)
Goodhue 86, Pine City 58
Pine River-Backus 61, Cherry 49
No. 10-ranked Hayfield 64, No. 19-ranked Minneota 40 (Hayfield is 12-2 overall, while Minneota falls to 7-3)

Area girls' basketball scores on January 13:
No. 4-ranked Hancock 71, Wheaton/Herman-Norcross 68 (Owls survive a scare from the 4-7 Warriors in Wheaton)
Annandale 64, Litchfield 42
Hutchinson 44, Willmar 42
Holdingford 55, Melrose Area 31
BOLD 67, Morris Area/Chokio-Alberta 37
Rothsay 59, Parkers Prairie 52
Osakis 57, Swanville 40
Upsala 60, Long Prairie-Grey Eagle 36
Montevideo 61, Sauk Centre 46
Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg 58, Lakeview 30
Walker-Hackensack-Akeley 73, Lake of the Woods 40
Henning 78, Sebeka 22