Round two fastpitch loss, Jaguars move into elimination bracket *UPDATED / VIDEO

A tense, well-played playoff game with a huge crowd had an outcome hanging in the balance until the seventh inning tonight for the second round of the Sub-Section 3A-North playoffs. With the lead changing hands three times, the Renville County West Jaguars came from behind to win 7-4 against our B-B-E Jaguars fastpitch team as they improved to 9-11 on the season.

B-B-E led 4-3 going into the top of the seventh inning. They left one stranded in the bottom of the seventh while being stymied by two ground ball plays and a pop fly to end the game. Earlier, our Jaguars broke a 3-3 tie in the bottom of the fifth inning on Faith Radermacher's one out sacrifice fly-RBI that scored Anna Jaeger. In the bottom of the second, our Jaguars erased a 2-0 deficit with a run scored by Kacey Fischer on an error and then RBI singles from Ava Lieser and Jaeger.

Freshman Mya Worms fired a three-hitter in the playoff opener, as our Jaguars defeated Ortonville 7-2 earlier today. Worms fired eight strikeouts against the Trojans. For B-B-E, they had just three strikeouts of their own through both games. Also huge: our Jaguars had just one error in each game.

Our Jaguars, now 9-12 overall, advance in the playoffs in the elimination bracket of the Section 3A tournament. They play in a win-or-go-home contest on Saturday, May 25 at 1 p.m. at the Marshall fastpitch softball complex. The opponent is to be determined, although I believe it will be Yellow Medicine East. RCW advances to play the 3A-South's top seed, Edgerton/Southwest MN Christian.

RCW is having their best playoff run since the 2015 season, when they went 2-2 in the Section 3A tournament before getting knocked out by neighboring rival BOLD.

More to come later. I need to get my second crop of potatoes planted before I run out of daylight!

Here's action from the Ortonville game in the bottom of the second inning:


In that second inning, the Jaguars left the bases stranded as the game was scoreless through the first four innings.

UPDATE: the MSHSL bracket says that our Jaguars will play Yellow Medicine East in the next playoff game at 1 p.m. on Saturday in Marshall. It's a win-or-go-home contest, and the winner stays alive to play right away at 3 p.m. in Marshall on Saturday. The stakes are high, but I am excited about Saturday and have high expectations for good things to come our way!

YME (8-12 overall) is the No. 5 seed in Sub-Section 3A-North. They went 1-1 today at Lac qui Parle Valley high school with a 7-0 win over Benson in the opener before an 11-2 loss to top-seeded LQPV. The Jaguars can have payback in their mind, as their season ended at the hands of the Sting in a 7-0 loss to YME during last year's playoff opener. Also, in the 2022 playoff opener at Murdock, YME defeated the Jaguars 2-1 to end our season. Time to return the favor!

A few random notes on YME...on May 14 in a Camden Conference doubleheader, YME split with RCW with a 2-1 loss and then a 13-2 win.

**Friday update...on Saturday, the Jaguars will play BOLD in an elimination game at 1 p.m. in Marshall. The MSHSL made a mistake when filling out the bracket last night. I'll let it go. I am too busy to be upset by that.

In baseball news...
At Upsala tonight, the B-B-E Jaguars baseball team earned what I'll call a "section split" with a 1-1 showing. They began with a crucial 6-0 win against Upsala/Swanville Area. Next was Long Prairie-Grey Eagle, who is currently the No. 2-ranked team in Sub-Section 6A-North. The Thunder led 6-0 through five innings, and the Jaguars scored three runs to go into the seventh inning trailing 6-3. LP-GE then tacked on two runs in the top of the seventh before shutting the door in an 8-3 win. Our Jaguars finish the regular season with a 13-7 overall record. This is their best regular season record since 2016! Seeding for the playoffs takes place on Saturday.

LP-GE (11-4 overall) finished as champions in the Prairie Conference this season with a 5-1 record, and they've won five straight to close out their regular seaosn. In second place was U/SA with a 4-2 record.

In track and field news...
Junior Taylor Nelson placed fifth in the Sub-Section 5A-West track and field championships held today at Maple Lake. He finished with a time of 11:03.15. That's the best finish I saw after glancing through the meet results. In the 1600 run, Nelson also placed fifth and had a time of 5:00.67. I also saw that sophomore Kameron Hiltner had a fifth-place showing; he took fifth in the 100 open with a time of 12.18 seconds (he's fast!).

In boys' golf news...
At the Section 5A meet in Willmar on Wednesday, B-B-E's Walker Winter finished in the top eight of the individual standings to advance into the Section Finals round. There's additional boys' golf coverage in this week's Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper.

Section 3A first round fastpitch playoff scores on May 23:
Lac qui Parle Valley 7, MACCRAY 1
Yellow Medicine East 7, Benson 0
Wabasso 7, Tracy-Milroy-Balaton 5
Russel-Tyler-Ruthton 10, Adrian/Ellsworth 0
BOLD 5, Murray County Central 4
Edgerton/SW MN Christian 14, Lakeview 1 (5 innings)