Friday Night Lights II: Jaguars pitch a shut out! (VIDEOS)

Holy cow! That was fun!

In their district opener for the new season, the B-B-E Jaguars football team put forth an incredible effort on defense while shutting out West Central Area by a 32-0 score. They have now won 10 straight regular season games going back to last fall. How about that! I believe the game was rightly billed as a "tough" game prior to kickoff, but as the game developed, the Jaguars seemed to get stronger and stronger. They had a few issues with penalties, especially in the second half, but through all four quarters they played well enough to finish with the coveted shutout.

The Jaguar defensive effort held the Knights to a net negative 3 yards on WCA first three offensive series. Even more impressive: through WCA's first five series of the game, they were held to a net zero yards!

The Jaguars received a WCA punt after the Knights went nowhere on their first series. With their second series of the game starting on their 45-yard line, the Jaguars used just 4 plays to punch in their second touchdown of the game. On 1st-and-10 at the WCA 40, Josh Walstrom hauled in a touchdown catch from Luke Illies to score with 6:37 left in the opening quarter. You can see that play out in the video below.

Here's exciting video from the first quarter tonight:


B-B-E's QB1's numbers were incredible, as Luke Illies had 16-for-24 passing for 273 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions. (For a QB rating of 144.6!) All four touchdowns were caught by senior wide receiver Josh Walstrom. B-B-E's other touchdown was scored on the ground by senior Jack Lundberg.

Against B-B-E's JV defense, WCA threatened in the closing minutes but ran out of time inside the 10-yard line.

Unofficially, the Knights were limited to 70 yards of offense. I haven't reviewed the official stats yet.

Game statistics...
B-B-E's running game totaled 135 yards on 26 carries and was led by Lundberg's 90 yards on 18 carries. Through the air, they added 273 yards on the 16 pass receptions thrown by Illies. In the fourth quarter with JV quarterback Aiden Mueller behind center, the Jaguars stuck almost exclusively to running the ball to keep the clock running. Mueller was 0-for-1 at quarterback.

Walstrom finished with 8 catches for 161 yards. Brett DeRoo had 3 catches for 27 yards.

Defensively, a total of 10 Jaguars recorded at least two solo tackles. Ethan Mueller had 7 solos, while Carson Gilbert had 6 solo tackles plus three quarterback sacks and four tackles for a loss.

WCA was held to 70 net yards: 10 in the air and 60 on the ground. WCA's passnig numbers were 5-of-14. It was a very tough night for the visitors, as the 70 yards were earned across 54 plays. B-B-E totaled 408 yards on 55 plays.

Next: the Jaguars (2-0) travel to Benson for their first road game of the season next Friday, September 13. They face a Braves team that played well tonight in a 28-20 loss to Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg in Murdock. Next week's game will be Benson's home opener. They lost their season opener at Manohmen last week to Mahnomen/Waubun.

Against K-M-S tonight, the Braves ran for 266 yards on 43 carries.

Here's a video from the pregame huddle just before the playing of the National Anthem:


Worth noting: in the Section 4A standings, Browerville, Upsala/Swanville Area and B-B-E are all 2-0.

I'll get a "Friday Night Lights II" podcast recorded tomorrow night.

Mid-Northwest Gopher Gold district scores in Week Two:
Browerville 34, Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City 0
Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg 28, Benson 20
Upsala/Swanville Area 47, Long Prairie-Grey Eagle 0

Area football scores in Week Two:
Minnewaska Area 34, Sauk Centre 10
Kimball Area 42, Osakis 8
BOLD 70, MACCRAY 6
Dawson-Boyd 35, Lac qui Parle Valley 13
Minneota 61, Yellow Medicine East 0
Paynesville Area 60, Maple Lake 14
Holdingford 46, Royalton 6
Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted 42, Montevideo 7