STEP V: Jaguars dial up double-digit win at STATE! (VIDEOS)

NOTE: this blog post has been heavily updated since 22:00 tonight...

How about that!

Was that FUN or what!!! And guess what!!! In our next game, the Jaguars will be on TV! (Channel 45!!)

At Maturi Pavilion on the campus of the University of Minnesota-Minneapolis today, the B-B-E Jaguars girls' basketball team used an incredible second-half display of defense to win going away by a 60-44 score against No. 4-seeded Underwood. The win improves their season record to 26-4 overall. They have shattered the school record for most wins in a season, which was 24 (set in the 2018-2019 season when they finished 24-6.)

The Jaguars held Underwood to just 11 points in the game's final 13 minutes. In the last 13 minutes, the Jaguars outscored the Rockets 21-11. B-B-E's crew were pure ball hawks all game long and forced 22 turnovers compared to just 9 turnovers by the Jaguars. The official box score showed 20 points scored by B-B-E off of turnovers to just 6 off of turnovers by Underwood. B-B-E scored 11 points off of the fast break, while the Rockets scored none in the same fashion.

Depth was another factor in the game, as the Jaguars went with an 8-person rotation to Underwood's 7-person rotation. With 4 minutes to go, Underwood subbed in an eighth player as the game began to get out of hand.

Overall, the game had 9 lead changes and 3 ties.

**Here's a short video clip from the first half of the game:

The video begins with 12:32 left in the first half.

With 14:20 left, Brooklyn Fischer's three-pointer gave the Jaguars an 8-6 lead. Underwood made two straight shots and led 10-8 with 13:35 left. After trailing 12-11 and then 16-13, Anna Jaeger swished a 10-footer with 8:14 left to narrow it to 16-15. Underwood succeeded on a three-point play with 7:14 left to take a 20-15 lead with a 10-4 run. After that the Jaguars dialed up the defensive full court pressure complete with a half court trap and tied it at 22-22 with 4:49 left on two Abby Berge free throws.

Fischer later drained an all-alone three-pointer with 3:47 left to gain a 26-24 lead. Underwood ultimately did not make a field goal in the last 4 minutes. At halftime: B-B-E 31, Underwood 25.

In their past two games, Underwood went into halftime in a deficit. They did not feel rattled at all being down six against B-B-E, as their head coach stated in the post-game press conference.

*Here's the last 53 seconds of the first half:

I'll get more second-half notes posted here after 8 p.m.

With 13 minutes to go, the Jaguars led 39-33. By the 9-minute mark, they had expanded the lead to 47-36 and were not threatened the rest of the way.

**Here's video from the final minute of the game:


B-B-E scoring: Abby Berge 18, Brooklyn Fischer 14, Allison Dingmann 9, Tiyana Schwinghammer 7, Adley Hagen 5, Bree Thieschafer 3, Ella Halvorson 2, Anna Jaeger 2. For the game, the Jaguars shot 32 percent from the floor (18-of-56) with solid marks from three-point land (4-of-14 for 29 percent) and also at the foul line (20-of-29 for 69 percent). Noteworthy: this was Abby Berge's fifth state tournament game in her career; in her first state game (March 12, 2020) she scored 18 points...and in today's game she scored 18 points!

UP NEXT: the Jaguars play at 12 p.m. tomorrow at The Barn. Their opponent will be top-seeded Mountain Iron-Buhl. The Rangers defeated Minneota 65-50 today in the 11 a.m. game at Maturi Pavilion.

In the 3 p.m. quarterfinal today, No. 2-seeded Hayfield defeated Badger/Greenbush-Middle River 63-58 in overtime. In the last quarterfinal of the day, No. 3-seeded BOLD defeated United Christian Academy 67-29. BOLD and Hayfield will meet in the other semifinal tomorrow (2 p.m.) at The Barn.

More to come. It's supper time!

Here's a big throwback all the way to the 2014-2015 season...this marks the final seconds of that season in the final game, which was held at a brand-new Alexandria Area high school on March 13, 2015:


I will never, ever forget that game. B-B-E trailed 8-7 early but then took a 22-15 lead with 9 minutes to go in the first half. At the break, the Jaguars led 32-31. It was not meant to be, however, as the Tigers outscored the Jaguars down the stretch. Senior Peyton Miller's three-pointer glanced off the rim in the final 2 seconds. It was a potential game-winning shot had it gone down. "STATE" that year was just not meant to be. The stars did not align for Coach Anderson's crew until 5 years later, the week before "COVID" broke out and overtook our lives. That 52-50 loss in 2015 was such a tough one to swallow. But look where we are today!!! B-B-E is playing in the program's second-ever Final Four round at state.

Speaking of looking back...let's do more of that!
In Coach Kristina Anderson's third season as head coach in 2014-2015, the Jaguars blazed their way to the Section 5A championship, a spot they hadn't been in for 10 years.

It was 2004-2005 when a team led by April Hansen, Tiffany Gruber, Colleen Radermacher, Krista Lundgren, Holly Thompson and others won a sub-section title before losing 57-51 to Underwood in the Section 5A championship at Minnewaska Area high school.

That Jaguar team was facing a Rockets team led by first-year head coach Brian Hoverud. That same coach worked opposite to Coach Kristina Anderson today, as Coach Hoverud is now in his 18th season leading the Underwood girls' basketball program.

In that aforementioned 2014-2015 season, B-B-E went toe-to-toe with state-ranked juggernaut Browerville before falling 52-50 in the Section 5A finals. It was a bitter loss to swallow.

Coach Anderson's teams have ran into other juggernauts in the playoffs since her third season. In 2015-2016, another Browerville juggernaut thrashed the Jaguars in the sub-section finals. In 2016-2017, B-B-E ran into a loaded Cromwell-Wright team in the Section 5A championship. In 2017-2018 and also 2018-2019, it was loaded/stacked Menahga teams who ended B-B-E's season just one game short of state.

Finally, in 2019-2020, the Jaguars tore apart Section 5A and thrashed Ogilvie in the finals to punch their ticket to the school's first-ever girls' basketball state tournament. Their next game was exactly where we played today: Maturi Pavilion. The opponent at state that year was a loaded Cromwell-Wright team that had two Division II players on the roster. The Jaguars put all they had into that game but fell 67-58. Fun stat: then-freshman Abby Berge scored 18 points to lead the Jaguars. That was without a doubt the last normal day of our lives (write it down: March 12, 2020, a day I will never, ever forget). The whole world seemed to change the next day. In the three basketball seasons since then, the Jaguars have made it to state two of those three years. In 2020-2021, we all can think back to the incredible run to the state championship game. Two televised games! And a tough 48-45 loss to Minneota in the title game.