Border battle win! (VIDEO)

Updates coming to this blog post on Wednesday night...

In a game where they got better and better as the 36 minutes played out tonight, the B-B-E Jaguars boys' basketball team won a hard-fought, high-flying border battle with visiting Paynesville Area by an 86-78 score. Winners of five straight games to this point, they are now averaging 70.4 points per game in their last 8 contests! Four players were in double figures for B-B-E tonight, with seniors Josh Walstrom (23 points) and Luke Illies (22 points) leading the way.

Here's a video featuring the game's tip-off and opening minutes tonight:


I won't have much to post here tonight, since it's the eve of publishing day at the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper. It will be fully updated on Wednesday.

How the first half played out...
The Jaguars jumped out to early leads of 5-0 and then 13-5 just shy of 4 minutes into the game. The Bulldogs then went on a 10-0 run, and a back-and-forth battle played out across the last 11 minutes of the first half. Three-pointers by Owen Roering and Luke Illies helped the Jaguars keep pace with a Paynesville team that entered the night averaging over 71 points per game.

After Taylor Pieper's pullup shot tied it at 23-23 with 8:30 left, the Bulldogs carved out leads of 31-26 and later 34-28 with just under 5 minutes remaining. Buckets by Austin Berge and Josh Walstrom cut it to 34-32, but Reed Johnson's three-pointer with 2:55 left made it a 37-32 deficit. Illies later scored inside the right block for a 38-37 lead with 2:05 left. Carter Flanders went 2-for-2 at the free throw line with 25 seconds left to give the Bulldogs a 42-40 advantage at the break.

The Jaguars started the second half with a lead-changing 7-0 run in 95 seconds of play. Paynesville tied the game at 47-47 on two free throws by Sam Brunner, but a 10-0 scoring run by B-B-E in just 75 seconds of play followed. Johnson knocked down a three-pointer to cut B-B-E's lead to 59-53, but Walstrom answered on the next possession with a three-pointer. Illies hit a three with 8:22 left for a 70-62 lead. The Bulldogs cut it to 70-67 with 7:38 left, and Flanders later went 2-for-2 at the line with 2:04 remaining to make it an 80-74 lead for the Jaguars. After Walstrom's layup with 1:38 left, Johnson buried a three-pointer with 1:17 left to make it an 82-78 score. The Jaguars got late free throws from Walstrom and Dominic Ramos for the 8-point win.

The Jaguars (10-15 overall) have now earned a 10-6 mark in their last 16 games after the season began with an 0-9 mark. During that 9-game losing skid, they averaged 55 points per game. B-B-E looks to continue their winning ways to finish the regular season when they travel to Hancock this Friday night for a non-conference sub-section game. The Owls (12-12 overall) had two straight wins to their credit coming into tonight's non-conference home game with former Pheasant Conference rival Ortonville.

In the Sub-Section 6A-South standings, the Jaguars are hovering in the No. 5 to No. 7 range as of tonight. The likely date for the playoff opener is Thursday, March 6 unless the Jaguars are the No. 7 seed. If that's the case, they will host a play-in round game on Monday, March 3 at 7 p.m. in Brooten. I honestly have no idea how the sub-section seeding would play out.

UPDATE: Hancock defeated Ortonville 67-57 on Tuesday night to improve to 13-12 overall heading into Friday's game with our Jaguars. The Owls finished in fourth place in the Little Eight Conference.

The Bulldogs take a 15-11 record into the Sub-Section 3AA-North tournament, where they are expected to be the No. 3 seed. In the CMC, they finished 10-4 in a tie for second place with Kimball Area. Paynesville Area is far and away an up-and-coming squad, as 76 of their 78 points tonight were scored by underclassmen. No kidding.

Here's a Wednesday night update...
I'll get an area scoreboard posted below on this blog post.

The Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website will undergo updates to its current list of articles. You can click over there now to see a video from the FFA milk relays held last Wednesday at the high school gym. Link: https://shorturl.at/uZl8X. Another video clip was posted last week featuring the FFA milk relays: https://shorturl.at/VNstp. I'll get college basketball notes added in a new blog post on Thursday morning.

Central MN Conference boys' basketball scores on February 25:
Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City 85, Kimball Area 83
Holdingford 85, Eden Valley-Watkins 45
Royalton 79, Maple Lake 28

Area boys' basketball scores on February 25:
Rockford Area 64, Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted 53
Spectrum 73, Sauk Centre 61
Albany 82, Little Falls 34
Osakis 59, St. John's Prep 48
West Central Area 70, BOLD 69
Hancock 67, Ortonville 57
Browerville 79, Parkers Prairie 61
Rothsay 75, New York Mills 47
Henning 74, Brandon-Evansville 51
Swanville 70, Bertha-Hewitt 46

Area girls' basketball playoff scores on February 25:
Central MN Christian-Prinsburg 55, Lakeview 33
MACCRAY 63, Minneota 62 (this is Minneota's earliest playoff exit since 2010; ironically, in 2010, MACCRAY was the team that bounced the Vikings out of the subsection playoffs)
New London-Spicer 72, Morris Area/Chokio-Alberta 27
Mesabi East 50, Pierz 40
Jackson County Central 72, Redwood Valley 56
Minnewaska Area 59, Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg 32