Step III: a dream cut short, five-game thriller goes to the Knights (VIDEOS*)

Time for a "post makeover" on Wednesday night! Tonight, Wednesday, I am struck a bit by straight up fear at getting through the next 48 hours. The next 48 hours involve a drive to Fargo, North Dakota, and the biggest football game since last year's state semifinal contest in Minneapolis. The pressure is on at full strength after I remake this blog post, which will bring you a full recap of the sub-section championship. I have added a sports podcast recording at the end...

This will be brief! I have a long drive ahead.

Trailing 6-1 in game five, the B-B-E Jaguars volleyball team picked themselves up and made a battle of it with West Central Area. In the end, the Knights had too much at the end and advance with a 15-12 win. B-B-E cut an 11-6 deficit down to 13-10 late in the final game.

The Jaguars won game FOUR by a 25-20 score. It is time to head home.

Here's an overview of how Tuesday night played out for the Sub-Section 6A-South volleyball championship in Fergus Falls.
In a heavyweight battle between Top 10 teams in Class 1A, the B-B-E Jaguars volleyball team had revenge on their minds with No. 8-ranked West Central Area. The Knights, who entered the night ranked No. 12 in Class 1A by QRF, faced a Jaguars team that was No. 2 on that same scale. Both teams bring back a long list of returning talent from their 2023 squads that also met in the same match that precedes the state qualifier, the Section 6A championship. In 2023, the Knights prevailed by a 3-1 margin against a B-B-E team that featured numerous newcomers to the varsity level but had a stellar regular season where they earned a solo conference crown.

In a match reminiscent of the 2021 Section 6A championship, during which our Jaguars suffered a five-set loss to Breckenridge and fall one win short of state, the West Central Area Knights prevailed 3-2 to claim their second straight sub-section title. Game scores vs. WCA: 17-25, 22-25, 25-20, 25-20, 12-15. The Jaguars finish a spectacular season 27-4 overall after going 23-7 a year ago.

Game five lasted a full 15 minutes, and you can read about all five sets further below on this blog post...first, here's some video plus other notes I posted last night before preparing the October 31 issue of the Bonanza Valley Voice for the printing press.

Here's action from early in game two where the Jaguars were trying to right the ship after fading in a game one loss:


*Here's video in game 4 tonight featuring the end of that set:


The clip begins with the Jaguars ahead 23-18. That fourth set was polished off by a big middle attack for a kill by sophomore Teagan Dingmann.

It's nearing 23:00 tonight, and I'm back in the saddle in the comfort of my home office. It's GOOD to be home! I topped out at around 220 action photos tonight. GOOD grief!

It will take a day or two to really let tonight's volleyball match soak in. It truly was a remarkable, thrilling, exciting, heartbreaking night. As it is common knowledge by this point, B-B-E's senior setter and third-year starter, Kylie Weller, suffered a knee injury last week and was unable to play tonight. She bravely poured herself into supporting her team sitting on the bench with crutches next to her. It was tough. Real tough. I told her dad tonight that once she is back from whatever surgery she may face, she will be tougher because of what she went through. I can speak to that after having one of my own daughters face an extremely tough surgery and recovery one year ago.

To add to that difficult adversity that our Jaguars faced this week, a big scare came over everyone on our side when junior outside hitter Kacey Fischer collided with the left volleyball post. She was down for about two minutes before getting tended to by our fearless trainer. At that point, our Jaguars held an 18-15 lead in game two. INCREDIBLY, with Kacey on the bench and freshman reserve Macey Roering taking her spot, the Jaguars INCREASED their lead to 21-16! It was INCREDIBLE!! Did I say that it was INCREDIBLE! Kadynce Haider smoked an attack to make it 21-16. Somehow, also incredible...the WCA Knights fought back with a noteworthy amount of perseverance and took a 22-21 lead on a 6-0 run. Haider then tipped it for a kill to tie it at 22-22. WCA got a kill, and the Jaguars were called for a lift to bring set point. The Knights were on an 8-1 run. The final point came on a hitting error that gave WCA a 25-22 win and a 2-0 lead in sets.

Kacey Fischer returned to the court for game three, and the Jaguars proceeded to shine at crucial junctures of the next two sets as they forced a game five. She finished with 18 kills on 46 attacks with 17 digs and 2 block assists.

Game one vs. WCA
The lead changed hands when the Jaguars fought back from a 5-3 deficit when Haider's kill put them in front 6-5. Kacey Fischer's right side kill plus her ace serve and a Hagen kill put them ahead 10-6, prompting WCA into a timeout. The Knights scored 3 straight while going on a 9-1 run. The Jaguars got two points on WCA errors, but they had their own string of miscues that helped WCA take a 21-13 lead. Kills from Kamie Fischer, Lieser and Haider were not enough to fuel a late rally.

Game two vs. WCA
The Jaguars had the upper hand early in game two and caught fire with a 5-0 run that put them ahead 7-2. Beginning with a block by Teagan Dingmann, the Jaguars were the aggressors with two kills from Kacey Fischer and two ace serves by Hagen. The Knights clawed back to trail 10 before Lieser's kill brought a side out. Hagen hit consecutive kills to help expand the lead to 17-10. Kacey Fischer went to the bench briefly after colliding with the left volleyball post, but the Jaguars maintained their composure and expanded an 18-15 lead to 21-16. WCA stormed back to gain a 25-23 win as they stunned Jaguar fans with a late 8-1 run.

Game three vs. WCA
Once again, the Jaguars rocketed out of the gate to build a big lead early in game three. An ace tip and a block by Dingmann plus Kacey Fischer's kill made it 7-1. The Jaguars pushed the tempo and led 13-9 before WCA All-State hitter Mya Foslien came alive with five kills that put her team ahead 15-14. Kamie Fischer's ace tip and an ace serve made it a 19-16 lead, but the Knights tied it with 3 straight points. Not wanting to flirt with a loss by sweep, the Jaguars put together their best run of the night while scoring 6 of 7 points in a 25-20 win. Lieser, Kacey Fischer and Hagen all had late kills, with Lieser's kill making it 24-20 before the Knights hit long to end the set.

Game four vs. WCA
The Jaguars came back from a 4-2 deficit in game four and maintained the upper hand with leads of 7-4, 13-7 and 16-11. WCA closed the gap to one point, but the Jaguars were strong down the stretch as Dingmann's kill finished another 25-20 win.

Game five vs. WCA
With Foslien hammering down 4 straight kills and then earning an ace block, WCA was the aggressor to start game 5 with a 5-0 lead. The Jaguars came back from a 6-1 deficit with kills by Hagen and Kacey Fischer plus Abigail Lien's ace serve and Haider's block to make it 7-5. WCA got a right-side block for an 11-6 lead, but Haider had two kills to cut it to 12-9. Down 14-10, Dingmann and Hagen had 2 straight kills to make it 14-12, but that's as close as they got. You can watch the final rally by the Jaguars in game five by clicking over to the Bonanza Valley Voice website: https://tinyurl.com/cy7wh3a9.

The Jaguars were strong at the service line with 94 percent serving and 8 ace serves. Three hitters were in double digits: Kacey Fischer (18 kills), Hagen (15 kills) and Haider (13 kills). Kamie Fischer had 47 set assists, and Deters tallied 19 digs.

Here's the WCA Pep Band playing the National Anthem, the player introductions and the start of game one tonight:


Game stats will not be fully reviewed until Wednesday morning.

In the Sub-Section 6A-North finals tonight at Fergus Falls, the No. 1-seeded Breckenridge Cowgirls suffered a 3-2 loss to No. 2-seeded Hillcrest Lutheran Academy. Crazy. Back-to-back five-set championship matches played tonight in Fergus Falls! The WCA Knights (26-4) will face Hillcrest Lutheran Academy in the Section 6A finals this Saturday night at 7 p.m. back at Fergus Falls.

More to come. I saw Maple Lake beat Kimball Area 3-2 in a giant playoff match in Section 5AA. The Irish were the home team tonight. In the last match of the regular season (October 15), Maple Lake survived a scare at Kimball Area in a 3-2 win that gave them a share of the conference title with our Jaguars. Next for Coach Marty Kiebel's squad is Providence Academy, a team ranked No. 20 in the Class 2A QRF that sports an 18-3 overall record. The Lions were champions of the Independent Metro Athletic Conference. The Section 5AA Final Four features Maple lake, Providence Academy, top-seeded Annandale plus Watertown-Mayer.

Area volleyball sub-section final scores on October 29:
Pine River-Backus 3, Swanville 0 (Swanville's dream season ends in Sub-Section 5A-East; the Tigers, who lost to our Jaguars in the season opener, won 26-24, 25-18, 25-22 to avenge a 2-0 tournament loss on September 14 in Crosby; Swanville finishes 23-4 after one of their best-ever volleyball seasons, while PR-B takes a 19-11 record to the 5A finals against Sebeka)
Sebeka 3, Browerville 0
Sauk Centre 3, Royalton 0 (technically it was simply a Section 6AA semifinal)
Albany 3, Milaca 0

Area volleyball sub-section semifinal scores on October 29:
Canby 3, MACCRAY 0 (the Lancers end MACCRAY's season by scores of 25-18, 25-17, 25-17 in the 3A-North semis)
Minneota 3, Renville County West 0 (the Vikings won 25-20, 25-16, 25-19)
Paynesville Area 3, Eden Valley-Watkins 1
New London-Spicer 3, Litchfield 0

Here's my 11th sports podcast recording of this fall season:


I'll repost that in a new blog post on Thursday. Ironically, I had just a couple brief points I wanted to focus on during what was supposed to be a shorter sports show. In fact, it ended up going 15 minutes long. **A new blog post went live on Thursday morning, October 31.