(VIDEO) Welcoming home our ROCK STARS!

In case you missed it!

Here's the video from tonight...at the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website:
https://www.bonanzavalleyvoice.com/story/2018/11/01/sports/video-welcome-home-jaguars/731.html. The video should be done processing and available for viewing shortly after 19:00.

Have a great night, Jaguar Country! Signing off for a few hours of much-needed family time.

Another huge THANK YOU and shout-out to the Bonanza Valley State Bank of Brooten for being our feature, premier sponsor of B-B-E Jaguars sports coverage at the state volleyball tournament. We couldn't do this without the loyal, steady support of our local business community!

*Update: Ally Gruber was named to the Wells Fargo Class 1A All-tournament team.

Other exciting news: sophomore Karsee Kampsen finished the 2018 season with 1,010 set assists. She surpassed 2,000 set assists with her first set assist in game one of the Medford match on Friday. It gives me goosebumps knowing we have such a tremendously talented setter for two more years!

Also, in the Class 2A state championship match today in St. Paul, No. 4-seeded North Branch won 3-2 over favored and No. 3-seeded Marshall Area. The game five score? That score was 19-17. Unreal. I can't imagine the tension in the air late in that game five!! North Branch, champions of Section 7AA, went through the state tournament getting 3-2 wins in all three matches. They won in the semifinals over top-seeded Kasson-Mantorville 15-13 on Friday. On Thursday in the quarterfinals, they defeated No. 5-seeded Watertown-Mayer by a 15-8 score.

And I want to give a quick flashback post to 2010, the last year the Jaguars made it to state. That was also an exceptionally exciting season to be a part of! https://bbejaguars.blogspot.com/2010/11/jaguars-are-state-bound-absolutely.html.

This season marks just the second time in school history (B-B-E era) that the Jaguars have gone as far as the state Final Four round. In 2008, the Jaguars won the opener over Martin County West. They lost a crushing heartbreaker 3-2 to heavily-favored Windom in the semifinals. In the third-place match, they lost 3-0 to Ada-Borup.

And the clock struck midnight for my University of Minnesota-Morris Cougars volleyball team. Seeded No. 3 in their five-team conference tournament, the Cougars pulled off three straight upset playoff wins - ALL of them larger in magnitude than the previous - all the way to the Round of 32 in the NCAA Division III tournament. They beat No. 2-seeded UW-Superior in the UMAC semis, then No. 1-seeded and (at least) six-time defending UMAC champion University of Northwestern (St. Paul) to advance to the school's first-ever volleyball national tournament. UM-Morris then stunned No. 8-ranked (nationally) and No. 1-seeded (region) Gustavus Adolphus in the opening round of the Central Region tournament by a 3-0 sweep.

In the Round of 32 against St. Ben's today, the Cougars won two fiercely-contested 25-23 sets to go up 2-0. They were soundly defeated in game three, fought for a closer game four and then were in a very competitive game five before midnight struck. Game five: St. Ben's 15, UMM 11. They finish the year 23-12 but graduate just one senior off the 20-person roster.

• Finally, lost in the shuffle of the past 100-hour week I just went through was a shout out and congratulations to Ridgewater College and B-B-E 2018 graduate Morgan Gronli for their run to the NJCAA Region XIIIA tournament. The Warriors fell in the semifinals last weekend. They finished tied for second place in the seven-team MCAC Southern division standings at 8-4 with M-State Fergus Falls. Their final overall record was 13-13.

Who's excited? Updates...

Who's excited for tonight!

I hope you are! You don't have to be as excited as I am, but you better be at least a LITTLE excited about the B-B-E Jaguars winning a section title!

Here's another video I threw together this afternoon, with footage from October 20 in Morris. The UMM Cougars volleyball team knocked UW-Superior out of a first-place tie in the conference.


Time to pack up and head to Little Falls! Updates to follow on this blog post. Remember, first serve is at 7 p.m. And if you're wondering which radio station is carrying it, then you have not been paying attention!! Look at past posts to find out.

**Game one: updates to start around 7:30 p.m., and possibly sooner.
...the Jaguars are trailing 19-14. **Update: the Jaguars won 25-22.

Bring on game two!! **We are up 23-20 in game two!

WE WON THE MATCH!!! By a 3-1 margin in sets! Updates to come in a new blog post! (Click on the header)

##ConquerEveryDay

(VIDEO) UMM v. UNW volleyball

Time for a quick shout out to the University of Minnesota-Morris Cougars volleyball team! They are headed to the 'Ship just as our B-B-E Jaguars are! The Cougars travel to St. Paul to the University of Northwestern college for the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference championship. The winner gets an automatic slot in the NCAA Division III playoffs!

For the second straight year, on identical nights, I will be keeping tabs on two volleyball matches that have a lot riding on them. First serve tonight is at 7 p.m. for both the Cougars and our Jaguars! Thanks to modern technology I'll have live stats to glance at for the UMM match in St. Paul while covering the B-B-E match live at Little Falls. It will be nerve-wracking all night long.

Footage below is from October 10, when the UMM Cougars hosted UNW in a tough 3-2 loss. They fell 15-13 in game five. The two video clips show UMM's wins in games one and two, 25-23 and 29-27.

The first clip starts with 2017 KMS graduate Tori Evenson serving. UNW lost when their leading hitter (Halvorson) hit outside the left line, as Evenson slides for a dig but then let it go for game point.

In the "kill shot" photo, UMM senior Rachel Mathis knocks an ace attack into a UNW block attempt. She is the lone senior in the UMM rotation and a huge component in their front line attack. UMM overall is a young squad, but they have been playing like a group of veteran players under first-year head coach Joe Sussegeth. He recruited B-B-E graduate Morgan Gronli to Ridgewater College before accepting the UMM job last summer.

I shanked the videocamera after game point in game two, panning away from the player celebration. Grrrr!! It was a very thrilling moment, for sure, going up 2-0 in sets.



We are very proud of this Cougars team and are excited about their chances to advance to the region tournament!!

Time for a mid-morning break for family time. This is one of the biggest days of the year for my sports department!! Probably only behind the day Adam Jaeger won a state wrestling title in March!

##ConquerEveryDay

College volleyball slug-fest

A wild slug-fest played out at the University of Minnesota-Morris on Wednesday night between the UMM Cougars volleyball team and the University of Northwestern Eagles. UMM entered the match in third place in the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC), while UNW was 11-0 and in first place.

I had the pleasure of attending the match and watching it all play out.

UMM ultimately lost 15-13 in a wild game five.

Speaking of college volleyball...it's exciting to see Morgan Gronli being one of the leading hitters on the Ridgewater Warriors volleyball team....she had 12 kills last night against the St. Cloud Technical Cyclones: http://wctrib.com/sports/volleyball/4511984-ridgewater-eases-past-st-cloud-technical.

*Tonight, Thursday - remember that the volleyball match against Maple Lake will be aired on Smooth Magic 107 FM of Glenwood! Match updates will follow in a newer blog post.

"Live boldly, push yourself, never settle"

##ConquerEveryDay

All-American volleyball team

The University of Minnesota-Morris’s volleyball team’s career kill leader earned her second All-American honor to cap off a sparkling four-year career playing for the Cougars. Marissa Ekness, senior outside hitter, was named  by the American Volleyball Coaches Association to the Division III Honorable Mention All-American list for the second year in a row. Ekness graduates with repeat honors as an All-Region (Central Region) player and now All-American. In her four years at UMM, she compiled 1,717 kills.

Ekness was joined by fellow senior Katie Reitsma (Sauk Centre/Padua) on the All-American honorable mention list by the AVCA. Reitsma, a libero who also earned All-Region honors this fall, was the first Cougars player to eclipse the 2,000-dig mark. The new program mark is 2,024 digs. She led the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference in digs this fall with 694.

And the best part? Both stand out college athletes are ##HumbleAndKind, qualities that seem to be harder and harder to find in today's world.

Gustavus Adolphus College’s Nora Holtan (junior setter) and the University of Northwestern’s (St. Paul) Lindsey Peterson (senior hitter) were named to the first team, with Peterson earning her second All-American First Team honor. Other Minnesota players named All-American were Whitney Lloyd (senior middle blocker) of the University of St. Thomas, Kate Holtan (freshmen hitter) of Gustavus Adolphus, Leesa Malone (senior setter) of UNW-St. Paul, Megan Pekarek (senior setter) of the College of St. Bendict and Kristin Stern (senior middle blocker) of Bethel University.

If you missed the November 9 article on Ekness's battle with Stage III melanoma in the Bonanza Valley Voice, please be sure to read it! If you don't get the newspaper, you are cheating yourself!! I consider that story a "top 5" story out of the 4,000-plus stories that I've written since joining the newspaper industry in 2003. Aside from a couple errors, I consider it one of my masterpieces. As I told her earlier today, I have read the story at least 20 times since the newspaper printed - and it brings me to tears at least every other time.

Thank the Lord! That she has mastered the art of conquering every day!

##ConquerEveryDay

Vote for my Cougars!

Click on the link and vote for my UM-Morris Cougars volleyball team in the conference's Play of the Week via social media:
http://umacathletics.com/news/2017/11/7/football-umac-play-of-the-week-nov-7-2017.aspx

Hint: it's option No. 3! Voting ends on Thursday.

This is just nuts!!!

This is just nuts!!!!

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