In a high-stakes Central Minnesota Conference border battle tonight, the B-B-E Jaguars volleyball team put together strong performance across games two and three as they swept the Paynesville Bulldogs out of a three-way tie for first place. Game scores were 25-21, 25-14, 25-17.
The Bulldogs fall into third place with a 3-2 record in the CMC. The Jaguars are now a half-match ahead of EV-W in first place with a 4-1 CMC record. The EV-W Eagles are 3-1 in the CMC and have these teams in front of them on the schedule: Kimball Area, Maple Lake and Royalton.
Tonight's sweep was a terrific win for the Jaguars as they come off a tough five-set loss at Eden Valley-Watkins last Thursday. The Bulldogs (11-8 overall) have a firm grip on the No. 3 position in Sub-Section 3AA-North and were winners of four straight coming into tonight. They are looking up at EV-W (16-7) and New London-Spicer (19-1) in their subsection.
B-B-E improves to 9-7 overall with the win as they prepare for the Homecoming match on Thursday with Section 6A rival West Central Area in Brooten.
Here's a video from early in game three tonight:
Earlier in the match, the Jaguars had to overcome a somewhat sluggish performance in game one to come out with a 25-21 win. They had an 18-15 lead that brought a Bulldogs timeout. Trailing 21-20, the Bulldogs served long to fall behind by two points. They got a kill, but then back-to-back Paynesville hitting errors brought game point. Laken Anderson finished things off with a kill to make it a 1-0 set lead.
Here's how the end of game one played out:
In recent years, the Jaguars have had some terrific battles against Paynesville. The Bulldogs have become a formidable Highway 55 rival. With that said, you have to go all the way back to the 2017 season to see the last time the Jaguars fell to the Bulldogs in volleyball.
In girls' tennis news...
In their playoff opener today, the B-B-E Jaguars girls' tennis team went down swinging in a 6-1 loss at Long Prairie-Grey Eagle high school. The LP-GE/Upsala-Swanville Area Thunder feature a team with four seniors, and their senior leadership pulled through while helping the home team take straight-set wins at No. 1 and No. 2 singles plus No. 1 doubles. B-B-E eighth grader Jena Borgerding won the lone point for the Jaguars with a straight-set win at No. 4 singles.
Here's a video with doubles action today at LP-GE:
At No. 2 doubles, sophomore Abby Coners and eighth grader Tiffany Douvier played an incredible match but fell in a third-set tiebreaker. They won the first set 6-4 before falling 7-5 in the second set. Their LP-GE/USA doubles counterparts featured a freshman and a senior.
Although the tennis team's season has ended, the tennis season continues with the upcoming Section 6A individual tournament. You can read more about that in this week's Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper.
More to come in the morning when I can get more updates posted before the Color FUND Run. I took a little time off once I got home from Paynesville to enjoy a delicious watermelon I picked from our family garden earlier today! Mmmm Mmm GOOD!!!
