Jaguar baseball earns redemption! Nabs share of CMC title

Breaking news!

The B-B-E Jaguars baseball team completed a series sweep against Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City today, which has earned them a share of the 2025 Central Minnesota Conference title. This is a remarkable achievement that has eluded the program since 1995. The 30-year drought is over!

Game one final score: B-B-E 12, A-C-GC 6.
Game two final score: B-B-E 4, A-C-GC 0

In the pivotal game two, Luke Illies was the winning pitcher with these stat lines: IP-6 1/3 H-2 R-0 BB-1 K-4; Brett DeRoo was closer with 2/3 innings pitched.

B-B-E's baseball team needed every bit of mental toughness they could gather, as they woke up today coming off of two difficult losses last night that had vastly different complexions. The loss to Holdingford really bit, as it put their backs to the wall in the CMC race with the full task of beating A-C-GC twice today in order to earn a share of the conference.

The Jaguars finish the CMC with a 10-4 schedule, which lands them in a three-way tie for the CMC title with Paynesville Area and Holdingford. Royalton finished in fourth place with a 9-5 record.

Now 13-6 overall, the Jaguars wait to see where they will be seeded in Sub-Section 6A-South. Stay tuned! As of this afternoon, the Jaguars are ranked No. 7 in Class 1A by QRF, while the Upsala/Swanville Area Patriots are ranked No. 11.

The scheduled first round of the Sub-Section 6A-South playoffs is next Tuesday, May 27 at the high seeds. However, if the Jaguars are seeded No. 1, they receive a first-round bye and will open the playoffs on Thursday, May 29 in Morris. Let's not get ahead of ourselves, however, and instead wait until the seeding is official for Section 6A.

ALSO! I guess this isn't quite as exciting as a conference championship, but I am excited to share that the B-B-E high school's FFA garden nursery will remain open for an extra week. This was scheduled to wrap up this week with the conclusion of the 2024-2025 school year. Due to the rains of the past week, the FFA has made the decision to keep the garden store open into next week (open as they have available workers). Plants are marked 30 percent off! Please spread the word. They will be open tomorrow (Saturday) from 9 a.m. to noon.

That's all I've got right now. It is high time to prepare for the B-B-E graduation ceremony tonight!

And now it's late Friday night...
The B-B-E Jaguars fastpitch team travels to Marshall's Schwan's softball complex tomorrow (Saturday) for a 1 p.m. game in the elimination bracket of the Section 3A tournament. Their opponent is the BOLD Warriors, who are 13-9 overall. In the regular season, BOLD went 10-4 in the West Central Conference, good for a tie for third place with West Central Area.

I saw that Holdingford's fastpitch team took out Paynesville today in the Section 6AA elimination bracket. This ends Paynesville's season. From what I see, the Central Minnesota Conference still has Holdingford, B-B-E and Kimball Area alive in the playoffs.

Area fastpitch playoff scores on May 23:
West Central Area 11, Wheaton/Herman-Norcross 4
Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley 11, Hancock 4
Melrose Area 8, Eden Valley-Watkins 3
Holdingford 5, Paynesville Area 2
New York Mills 4, Parkers Prairie 3
W/H-N 3, Hancock 2
Lester Prairie 5, Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City 0
Swanville 9, Parkers Prairie 6
Browerville 10, Swanville 5
New York Mills 2, Browerville 1
C-G-B 4, WCA 2 (C-G-B improves to 21-0 with this playoff win)
Holdingford 5, Pequot Lakes 4
Pierz 4, Melrose Area 2