Step VI: girls' basketball Jaguars fall just short near the mountain top

Such a difficult loss to swallow. This one was very, very hard to swallow. This is what heartbreak feels like in athletics. It really, really hurt our players. I could read it on them like a book. It was brutal. Raw. Painful.

Ahead 48-37 with 9:55 to go after Harley Roering canned her third three-pointer of the game, the B-B-E Jaguars girls' basketball team ultimately gave up a 14-0 run from that point across a 5-plus minute span to see top-seeded and heavily-favored Mountain Iron-Buhl throttle their way back into the game. Not only did they get back in the game, they climbed into the driver's seat and gained a 51-48 lead with 4:43 left.

The Jaguars (26-5) came back to life in the last 4 minutes but came up just short. The Rangers won 61-57 to advance to the state title game.

Senior Abby Berge summed it up best in a succinct manner here in the post-game press conference:


I believed!!! I believed this entire game that the Jaguars could pull it off. They had many believers. It was a game I will never forget.

*Here's the final seconds of the game:


The Jaguars struggled mightily in the opening stage of the game. The Rangers led 4-0 with 2 minutes gone on Jordan Zubich's eight-footer. Abby Berge's free throw with 15:48 to go got the Jaguars on the scoreboard. Tiyana Schwinghammer had a blocked shot and then a steal on an inbounds pass in back-to-back fashion. She earned a second steal with 15:12 left, but Hali Savela's fast break shot with 14:55 left put the Rangers in front 6-1.

Berge then scored on a right-side layup with 14:21 left for B-B-E's first field goal. Schwinghammer drained a floater in the lane with 13:56 left to narrow it to one point. Anna Neyens then hit MI-B's first three-pointer of the game with 13:26 to go for a 9-5 Rangers lead. Sage Ganyo's paint shot with 11:48 left then gave MI-B a big lead early on at 11-5.

What happened next was one of the most incredible moments of high school sports I have witnessed...and it was the first of numerous such moments in this game. On an assist from Anna Jaeger, Harley Roering drilled a three-pointer that sparked a rally. It was the first three-pointer she's made since February 3 in Grove City. It was on that night that she suffered a serious knee injury, but there she was today doing what we needed from her...lighting up MI-B's defense from long range.

MI-B went ahead 13-8 with 11:17 left. B-B-E responded with back-to-back shots by Adley Hagen from eight feet and then Schwinghammer at the top of the key on the arc. That three-pointer tied it at 13-13 with 10:11 left. MI-B Division I commit Jordan Zubich then scored her first points of the game with a shot right under the basket with 8:48 left. B-B-E answered with a 9-0 scoring burst across a span of 2 minutes, 38 seconds. Berge's pair of free throws with 6:22 left gave the Jaguars a 22-15 lead. This mirrored yesterday's win during which the Jaguars found a new gear and reversed an early deficit to go in front 32-26 at halftime against Underwood. MI-B hit two straight shots in the lane to narrow it to 22-19 with 5:40 left. Allie Dingmann came up with a huge bucket on the right block to extend the lead back to five points at 24-19. Schwinghammer then drained another three with 3:41 left to give the Jaguars their biggest lead of the game to that point at 27-19.

In the last 3 minutes, the Jaguars were outscored by a 7-5 margin thanks in large part to Ganyo's three-pointer with just 7 seconds on the clock. Halftime: No. 10-ranked (Minnesota Basketball News) B-B-E 32, No. 1-ranked MI-B 26. At the break, Abby Berge had held MI-B's Zubich to just 4 points; she entered the semis averaging almost 27 points a game.

*Here's a clip from the first half today:


MI-B scored the first points of the second half with 17:28 left, but after they cut it to 32-28, the Jaguars surged and ultimately took that wide 48-37 lead with under 10 minutes to go.

NEXT: the Jaguars (26-5) play at 10 a.m. at the Gangelhoff Center at Concordia University in St. Paul at 10 a.m. tomorrow, Saturday, March 18. BE THERE!! Start planning NOW!

For the game today: the Rangers shot exactly 50 percent from the floor (23-of-46) and made 4 of 14 three-point shots to go with 11-of-13 free throw shooting. The Jaguars shot 19-of-46 (41.3 percent) from the floor and made 7 of 19 three-pointers (36.8%) to go with 12-of-15 free throw shooting. They left it all on the floor. It was a wild game. B-B-E had 19 turnovers to 17 for the Rangers.

That is all for now. I have to head back to run my newspaper for a half a day before turning to the Twin Cities tomorrow for the BIG game!

**Update: the Jaguars will play the Hayfield Vikings for third place tomorrow. BOLD defeated the Vikings 59 to 46 in the other semifinal game today and will face MI-B for the state title tomorrow at noon at Williams Arena.