extended sports coverage for the B-B-E community brought to you by the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper in Brooten, MN. (Address: P.O. Box 250, Brooten) http://www.bonanzavalleyvoice.com. Please submit feedback in writing to the address posted above. **This is Minnesota's oldest varsity high school sports blog. We hope to keep it going into the future!
Saturday, September 22, 2018
(College) Homecoming win!
In come-from-behind fashion, the University of Minnesota-Morris Cougars football team won their Homecoming game for the fourth year in a row today. Final score from Big Cat Stadium: UM-Morris 13, Iowa Wesleyan 7.
They have a bye week next weekend before hosting Crown College back on the home turf on Saturday, October 6.
Check out this near one-minute long volley at the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference volleyball championship match held last night (Saturday) in St. Paul...on the court nearest the camera are the top-seeded University of Northwestern Eagles. UNW is ranked No. 12 in all of NCAA's Division III and also ranked No. 1 in the Central Region. Doing battle on the other side of the net are the No. 2-seeded University of Minnesota-Morris Cougars, the No. 8-ranked team in the Central Region. Each return of the ball is an eye opener!
Then, by the 50-second mark, pay special attention to the tip attack by UMM senior sensation Marissa Ekness...she's their left outside hitter in this video (right-hand side of the video) = https://twitter.com/umacathletics/status/927213628918566912/video/1 'Tis the season for shout outs from the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper's sports department...and once again this one is for the UMM Cougars volleyball team (UMM is my alma mater) and Marissa Ekness. At 11:30 a.m. tomorrow (Monday), she and her Cougars teammates and coaches will find out if they get an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. I would definitely rate them as a team on the bubble - and I hope and pray and ask you to join me too that their season will continue. I have not warned her about this shout out - so hopefully she won't turn eight shades of red once she comes across this. Fun fact: Marissa, who will soon be an elementary school teacher, participates in the Love Your Melon program. Love Your Melon is an apparel brand dedicated to giving a hat to every child battling cancer in America and supporting the fight against pediatric cancer.
Learn more here: https://www.loveyourmelon.com. After sitting through Tenley Thompson's funeral yesterday (R.I.P. - May 7, 2010 - October 30, 2017) I was certainly overcome with grief and sadness. I kept thinking not only of Tenley's struggle with her terminal disease, but also to any child out there who is battling cancer. I'll never, ever, EVER understand. No child should ever endure such suffering. Blahhh! This stuff just gets me. As a father of four, I cannot imagine experiencing any of this. No way. ##ConquerEveryDay
Here's video from game three on Thursday night against Royalton:
I want to give a shout out to Marissa Ekness, Katie Reitsma and their University of Minnesota-Morris Cougars volleyball team as they play for an NCAA playoff berth tonight. Reitsma, UMM's libero, hails from a Padua-area dairy farm and is a 2014 graduate of Sauk Centre high school.
Readers of my Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper will know some of the story of Ekness, who is one of the top-ranked hitters in all of Division III volleyball! She is an incredible person on and off the court. Between February and August this year, she conquered a tough battle with melanoma (skin cancer). There is much more to her story, though, and some of it has appeared and will appear again in the Voice newspaper. They face top-ranked (Central Region) University of Northwestern at 7 p.m. on UNW's home court tonight. It is their conference playoff championship match. The loser gets a second-place trophy and waits only for a possible at-large bid, while the winner moves on with an automatic berth to the NCAA playoffs.
Ekness has followed ourB-B-E Jaguars volleyball team's success in the playoffs through our conversations and this blog. She's sent many well-wishes our way. I appreciate any support given towards our school and our student-athletes! It is an honor to have one of the best college volleyball players in the country pulling for our team. It's unfortunate our matches overlap tonight. Both have HUGE implications!
For readers here so inclined, if you can send up well wishes, positive vibes and prayers for Ekness and her Cougars team - that would be FABULOUS.
I hope many of you are headed north to Pierz!!! See you there! GO JAGUARS!!
From left: UMM Cougars volleyball players Lindsey Markel, Kylee Hansen (4), Bekah Morris (16) and Marissa Ekness following the conclusion of their playoff match against U of W-Superior.
I spent my Wednesday night out west at the University of Minnesota-Morris, my old stomping grounds, while my daughters and I took in a very exciting college volleyball playoff match. My UMM Cougars defeated the University of Wisconsin-Superior in a 3-0 sweep. They're heading to the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC) volleyball championship for the fifth year in a row! Wowza!!! My newspaper's sports department got it all on tape to share with players' families.
*This clip begins with game three tied at 23-all...the Cougars were fighting for a conference playoff sweep, while the Yellowjackets were fighting to prevent one:
Game three was especially exciting, on the heels of two sets where UMM easily handled UW-Superior. The Cougars came back from a 17-8 deficit to tie it at 19-19! They ended up winning the set by a 27-25 score.
Time for bed! I have more to post in the morning. I hope some of you who are reading this can remember my publisher's column in the October 19 issue of the Bonanza Valley Voice. The column features a very special volleyball player at UMM, and it ties into the biggest job I have of being a father of four kids - particularly my daughters. If you read the column, it will give all the missing context to the reason why on earth we were in Morris in the first place - during what has been hands down the busiest stretch I've had in my (almost) three years of owning a newspaper. The player referenced is one of three seniors on the team. She ROCKED the court tonight with 14 kills, eight digs, four ace serves and one solo block. One of the other three seniors is one of Division III's best liberos who hails from a Padua-area dairy farm. (Fun fact: her big sister is a former Princess Kay of the Milky Way.) She made digging look easy! Some of the toughest attacks from the Yellowjackets were brought back in the air with ease for a perfect pass. It was marvelous to watch!
Tomorrow I'll be starting in "Part II" for that Oct. 19 column and highlight the wonderful time my daughters and I had in Morris tonight. My hopes are that it will be published in my Nov. 9 issue.
I have much more to write in this series! If you are a parent, you will understand when I say that a parent will go to the ends of the earth in support of their children. (For me I didn't go that far...just 40 miles to Morris!)
The UMM Cougars take a 26-7 record into the UMAC finals this Saturday night at 7 p.m. at the University of Northwestern in St. Paul. The UNW Golden Eagles (31-6) are the top seed and the top-ranked team in Division III's Central Region.
And...in terms of our own B-B-E Jaguars volleyball team! Make sure you get your car pools planned for the Little Falls trip! Our Jaguars need our support! I'll be there with my camera equipment and also with the pep band! What: Sub-Section 5A-South finals Where: Little Falls high school When: 7 p.m. on Thursday, November 2 Who: our B-B-E Jaguars vs. the Royalton Royals
