Fastpitch playoffs moved to Thursday; it rains all day Wednesday (VIDEOS*)

The same schedule holds for the Sub-Section 3A-North playoff opener, but it will take place on Thursday, May 22 instead of today. For the B-B-E Jaguars fastpitch team, they will have Wednesday to prepare for No. 6-seeded Benson for their playoff opener, which is at 4:30 p.m. in Granite Falls. I still have to look up where their fastpitch teams play.

Since yesterday morning, the Brooten area has received in the neighborhood of 3 inches of rain! Oh, my! The memory of a drought is fading. That's all I've got right now.

A couple boys' golf updates were posted to the last blog post. Also, girls' golf notes were added from yesterday's CMC meet.

With the steady rain we've received this afternoon, practices for baseball, fastpitch and track and field were all moved indoors.

Here's a glimpse of varsity fastpitch practice today:


As of early Tuesday evening, I think we've surpassed 3 inches of rain in the last 36 hours.

Shifting on to Wednesday...
By Wednesday night, the rainfall totals in Brooten have surpassed 5 inches since sunrise on Monday morning.

In other news, the May 22 issue of the Bonanza Valley Voice features the annual graduation section. This year, the newspaper's graduation section features 55 graduates with the B-B-E Class of 2025. Out of all 55 graduates, only 12 are committed to attending a four-year college. "Don't quote me"...but I believe this is hte lowest percentage (22 percent) of any B-B-E graduating class that is committed to a four-year college. Do you know what I call that? I call that progress!

At B-B-E elementary school on Wednesday morning, the staff and students held their year-end awards banquet. A special part of this event featured the Class of 2025 seniors joining the grades K-5 students for a few unique activities.

Here's a video featuring the Parents and Seniors Night 6 nights ago...


Thursday is the big day this week! The way things stand, I hope to see track and field action plus fastpitch softball action in both Litchfield and then Granite Falls. We'll see how the night goes.

I'd like to give a big tip of the hat to Maple Lake fastpitch coach Tim Knudsen, who has taught P.E. and coached at Maple Lake high school since 2004. In Maple Lake's game two win against our Jaguars last Thursday, Coach Knudsen earned his 400th career fastpitch win. That is a tremendous achievement! He is a 1981 graduate of Burlingame high school in California. Don't kid yourself: we need the CMC to continue being a strong and tough conference to compete in. This only makes our Jaguars stronger in preparation for the playoffs.

In the Section 5AA playoff opener, Maple Lake's fastpitch team lost 11-1 on Monday this week to Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted. The Irish finish the season 10-11 overall. They will graduate 6 seniors off of their roster.

In Section 6AA, Kimball Area (20-1) is the No. 2 seed out of 16 teams. Melrose Area (16-4) is the No. 3 seed, and St. Cloud Cathedral (19-1) is the No. 1 seed. Paynesville Area (14-7) is seeded No. 5, and Holdingford (7-13) is the No 9 seed. Seeded No. 10 is Eden Valley-Watkins (9-12). The EV-W Eagles earned an upset win to open the playoffs by defeating host Foley 8-5 on Monday. This avenged a 4-1 loss at Foley back on April 21, which was during a stretch where the Eagles started the season 1-8 overall. Their season seemed to turn around with a 12-2 six-inning win against visiting Osakis on April 29. EV-W is 8-4 in their last 12 games going back to that Osakis win.

Royalton (7-14) was the No. 13 seed, and they were eliminated from the playoffs on Monday in a 15-5 loss in 5 innings to Pierz.

Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City (4-14) opens the Section 4A playoffs tomorrow as the No. 8-seeded team, and they face No. 9-seeded Heritage Christian.