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!
Sunday, January 25, 2026
Catching up with some college news
This winter, as far as I am aware, three B-B-E graduates are playing collegiate basketball. They include Class of 2023 graduates Kaden Pieper (University of Minnesota-Morris), Tiyana Schwinghammer (Valley City State University) plus Class of 2024 graduate Brooklyn Fischer (St. Cloud Technical and Community College).
In Saturday's game against Mayville State, Schwinghammer scored 18 points in 30 minutes of play to lead the scoring for the VCSU Vikings, who beat the Comets 100-57. This snapped a 10-game losing streak. Schwinghammer, a junior, also had 3 rebounds and 3 assist with 4 made three-point shots. This game was played at Memorial Auditorium on the campus of Concordia College in Moorhead, since Valley City State University's gymnasium recently received water damage.
In another game played on Saturday, the University of Minnesota-Morris Cougars defeated the University of Wisconsin-Superior Yellowjackets 80-78 in a Upper Midwest Athletic Conference game in Morris. Pieper scored 18 points, and the UMM Cougars improved to 4-1 in the UMAC. Pieper scored his 18 points in 32 minutes of play, and he also added 5 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals.
In a Minnesota College Athletic Conference game on Saturday against Anoka-Ramsey, the St. Cloud Technical and Community College Cyclones fell 64-53. Fischer led the Cyclones with 15 points in 36 minutes of play plus 6 rebounds. Through 17 games, Fischer is averaging 15.6 points per game on 36 percent field goal shooting.
The non-conference game against Lac qui Parle Valley for our B-B-E Jaguars boys' basketball team has been rescheduled to Thursday, January 17. The game will be played at the University of Minnesota-Morris P.E. Center.
LQPV is 9-4 overall and 6-2 (first place) in the Camden North Conference. They are tough! It will be a great game...with luck I hope to get out to Morris to watch it.
Not sure if this was posted a few days ago or not...here's footage of the Trinity Lutheran (Brooten) Youth Bell Choir performing at Sunday worship on January 6. Many of these students are multi-sport athletes at B-B-E! Click here to the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website: https://bit.ly/2QGHXxm.
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.
*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.
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.
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 namedby 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
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
