Between games on Saturday in Belgrade, I added some updates to this blog post...at the bottom of the post, you can watch the college women's basketball game on Saturday in Worthington at a live YouTube player...
In their second Central Minnesota Conference game of the week, the B-B-E Jaguars girls' basketball team improved to above .500 with a dominating 63-23 win against visiting Maple Lake tonight. The halftime score was 36-11. They are now 4-3 overall heading into a non-conference road game next Tuesday in Prinsburg.
Freshman guard Macey Roering's career-high 26 points led the team, and the Jaguars shot 35 percent from the floor and 3-of-14 on the arc. At the charity stripe, the Jaguars made 14 of 18 free throw attempts.
Maple Lake falls to 1-5 overall and 0-2 in the CMC.
Here's a video from the second half in last night's K-M-S game:
I've got wrestling updates to post here from the Paynesville trianglar. Our wrestlers travel to West Central Area high school for a big dual meet tournament on Saturday.
Here's a video from Thursday night featuring the B-B-E Pep Band playing the National Anthem, which was followed by the starter introductions and tip-off:
In a big game between Royalton and three-time defending Central Minnesota Conference champion Holdingford, the Huskers and Royals played in a back-and-forth game at Holdingford. The Huskers held a double-digit lead only to see the Royals storm back and win convincingly by a 54-41 score. The Huskers are now 1-1 in the CMC and 4-2 overall. Before tonight, their last loss in the CMC was on January 18, 2022 in Paynesville by a 63-41 score. In that 2021-22 season, the Huskers ended up earning a CMC co-championship with Kimball Area at 11-3 each in the league.
In wrestling news...
At Paynesville to start the Central Minnesota Conference schedule tonight, the B-B-E Jaguars wrestling team lost to the host Bulldogs 52-15. I believe it's the first time in at least 10 seasons that our Jaguars have lost in a dual meet to the Bulldogs. In the other dual, the Jaguars blasted Kimball Area 57-18. Paynesville Area won 65-8 in their dual with the Cubs.
Against the Cubs, the Jaguars won the last three weights by forfeit (189, 215 and 285). Kimball Area also had open weights at 139 and 145.
Central MN Conference girls' basketball scores on December 13:
Kimball Area 55, Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City 47
Royalton 54, Holdingford 41
Area girls' basketball scores on December 13:
New London-Spicer 93, Rockford 37
Long Prairie-Grey Eagle 59, Ashby 43
Osakis 64, Morris Area/Chokio-Alberta 37
Verndale 54, Sebeka 14
Hancock 77, Battle Lake 39
BOLD 67, Montevideo 54
Crosby-Ironton 73, Braham 40
Sauk Centre 58, Minnewaska Area 48
Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg 84, Ortonville 15
Wheaton/Herman-Norcross 58, Parkers Prairie 54
Swanville 70, Melrose Area 58
Area boys' basketball scores on December 13:
Renville County West 65, Maple Lake 46
Belle Plaine 78, Eden Valley-Watkins 50
Minnewaska Area 91, Menagha 41
Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City 85, Alden-Conger/Glenville-Emmons 53
Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg 39, Litchfield 37
Benson 72, Long Prairie-Grey Eagle 35
Rothsay 57, Battle Lake 37
Rockford 73, New London-Spicer 56
West Central Area 80, Brandon-Evansville 55
Upsala 75, Browerville 64
In college athletics...
I actually stepped away from high school sports tonight and made a trip south to Ridgewater College, where my daughters and I and a couple extra 5th grade girls' basketball players watched Class of 2023 graduate Tiyana Schwinghammer and Class of 2024 graduate Grace Jackson in action. There are few things on earth that will fully pull me away from high school sports coverage, but college sports can do just that. On paper, the game had the makings of a total and complete mismatch: the Ridgewater Warriors were 0-8 coming into the night, while the Northland Technical and Community College Pioneers were 7-4 overall and ranked No. 2 in the latest NJCAA Division III national polls. That's not how the game played out, however, and Ridgewater played a terrific game in spite of having only 6 players compared to Northland's 12 players.
Final score: Northland 72, Ridgewater 51. Schwinghammer scored a career-high 28 points to go with 7 assists and 6 rebounds. It was a special sight to witness! Grace Jackson played 37 out of 40 total minutes and scored 5 points with 5 assists and 1 steal.
On Saturday, the junior high girls' basketball teams host the Central Minnesota Conference tournament. The 8th grade Jaguars take a 9-2 record into the tournament to conclude their season. Also on Saturday, as mentioned before, the wrestlers travel to Barrett for the Grant County Duals. The B-B-E/Paynesville Pirouettes dance team travels to Albany for their second competition of the season.
This is great! You can watch Tiyana Schwinghammer's game in Worthington on Saturday at this web player:
Tip-off at Worthington is at 1 p.m. on Saturday. This game features the No. 2 and No. 4-ranked teams in NJCAA Division III: the Northland Pioneers (#2) and the MN West Worthington Bluejays (#4). The Bluejays are the defending Region 13B champions and also NJCAA Division III national champions. Update: Schwinghammer's Pioneers improved to 9-4 overall with their 6th straight win as they defeated the Bluejays 60-45.
