This, that and that (VIDEOS)

This blog post will serve as a catch-all for the next 24 hours or so. The next 72 hours are going to be flat out crazy. It begins with having a GOOD Tuesday, and that all hinges on being able to throw most of my energy and focus into publishing the October 17 issue of the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper.

Tonight, at the elementary cafeteria, the B-B-E Jaguars girls' tennis team held their season banquet and awards ceremony. In the last week, I fell a little behind on sports blogging for the tennis team. In fact, I think I still have video from the Section 6A playoffs in Litchfield that I haven't uploaded. Yikes! That was 11 days ago. In order to stay on track, I'll post a video that only has 2 views so far...this is from that day, October 3, in Litchfield.

Here's action at No. 1 and No. 4 singles in the Section 6A quarterfinals:


...and let's go back one day prior to that with the home playoff opener on October 2.

Here's action at No. 1 doubles with Ellan Fischer and Grace Berndt:


This year's tennis team fought with outstanding grit, determination and sportsmanship all season long. They improved week by week, which was shown by their performance at the Prairie Conference tournament on September 19 and then in the final week of September while leading into the postseason. This week's newspaper will feature additional coverage.

It's still shy of 10 p.m. tonight, and I need to get out and cover a bunch of vegetables in the garden. Based on the forecast, we'll see approximately 6 straight hours of freezing temperatures tonight as the mercury dips to as low as 29 degrees (between 3 and 8 a.m.). If I can get a few of our vegetable plots through the next couple of nights, the outlook says that we've got smooth sailing without frost until at least October 23!

And a Tuesday update...the blankets worked! We've got a great variety of vegetables that will live to another day.

Volleyball updates to follow here later on Tuesday night...

College athletics update (VIDEOS)

Here's the latest I've collected on current B-B-E graduates who are playing college ball...featured are two volleyball players and one football player.

Ethan Spanier is a 6'2" 290-pound defensive tackle who's played in six games this fall for North Dakota State College of Science. The Wildcats are 6-0 in the Minnesota College Athletic Conference and 7-1 overall with the playoffs set to begin on October 19. In their last regular season game, NDSCS defeated rival Rochester by a 28-25 score on Saturday in Rochester.

Emily Kern, junior 5'6" libero at St. Cloud State University, recorded 6 digs and one set assist in Saturday night's 3-2 win for the Huskies against conference rival Wayne State in Wayne, Nebraska. SCSU (14-2, 8-0 Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference) entered the match ranked No. 5 in the latest national polls, while Wayne State (14-3, 8-1 NSIC) was ranked No. 6. The incredible game five was won by a 18-16 score after the host Wildcats held match point with a 16-15 lead.

Brooklyn Fischer, a 5'9" freshman middle hitter at St. Cloud Technical and Community College, has recorded 236 kills this season at an average of 3.47 kills per set with 22.7 percent hitting efficiency. Her Cyclones are having an outstanding season and stand 15-4 overall with an 8-1 conference record. On Friday in St. Cloud, the Cyclones had a nine-match winning streak halted in a 3-2 loss to MN West Community and Technical College (15-11 score in game five). Fischer led her team with 14 kills on 17.6 percent hitting with a team-leading 26 digs and 5 block assists. In the MCAC South division standings, SCTCC has a half-match lead over MN West, who is 24-4 overall and 7-1 in the conference. The two teams have a big rematch on the horizon next Friday, October 18 in Worthington.

Getting back to high school sports...
The next three days are jam packed! And I do mean packed!!! Events taking place three nights in a row. It's going to be interesting to navigate through all of it. I'll explain more later. Here's what's on the docket: on Monday comes a school board meeting, Brooten city council plus the tennis team banquet. Tuesday brings grades 7-12 volleyball action at Paynesville that also concludes the varsity team's regular season. For Wednesday, the football team has a big game at Murdock against K-M-S.

Here's a video from early in the 3rd quarter at Browerville:


And then let's fast forward to the fourth quarter at Browerville...

Here's a video featuring Andrew Spanier's touchdown reception...


The Browerville Tigers traveled to Barrett to West Central Area high school's stadium on Friday. They suffered a 24-0 loss to the once-beaten WCA Knights to fall to 4-3 overall with their second straight loss. The WCA Knights have an outside shot at winning in their last game to finish the regular season 7-1 overall. They host Upsala/Swanville Area in Week 8.

Also this week...let's give a shout out to B-B-E senior Taylor Nelson, who is the lone Jaguar who competes this fall with the B-B-E/Paynesville boys' cross country team. The Jaguar-Bulldog harriers run at Holdingford on Tuesday this week in the Central Minnesota Conference championships starting at 4 p.m.

Friday Night Lights VII: 8th-ranked Jaguars defeat Thunder (VIDEOS!*)

The B-B-E Jaguars football team maintained second place in the Mid-Northwest Gopher Gold District standings with a 54-7 win over Long Prairie-Grey Eagle tonight. Parents Night was also held tonight in the last regular season home game.

The Jaguars built a 42-0 lead after the first quarter. At halftime, they led 48-0.

Big achievements! in tonight's second quarter, Jack Lundberg surpassed 1,000 season rushing yards. Luke Illies eclipsed the 1,000-yard mark for passing this season. Both are two valuable members of the 16 seniors on this year's roster.

Some light game statistics...
B-B-E totaled 288 offensive yards tonight while their defense held the Thunder to 89 yards from scrimmage. While employing a predominantly running game, Luke Illies had 3-of-6 passing marks for 58 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. Jack Lundberg finished with 154 rushing yards and now has 1,006 yards this season. Illies was also part of the rushing statistics with one long run for a 41-yard touchdown. B-B-E ran for 228 yards on 13 run plays.

This was another fun stat: 22 different Jaguars recorded at least one defensive tackle tonight, Cameron Loe, a junior, had the game's lone quarterback sack.

Here's a video from the second quarter tonight:


More to come later tonight after I review additional game statistics. There have been over 40 kids gathering tonight at Lucky Shots Bowling Alley in Brooten! This is a wonderful thing for our youth! Bravo to the B-B-E Fellowship of Christian Athletes program! Kids are participating in bowling, pool and simulated golf. I am beaming with pride in the organizers behind tonight's big party at the bowling alley.

**Here's a video from the 2nd quarter at Browerville on Friday Night Lights VI:


I am a little backed up right now on my sports videos for the tennis and football teams. This weekend is when I'll get caught up! **The video I just added features the final minutes of the second quarter at Friday Night Lights VI in Browerville. The clip begins with Brett DeRoo scoring on a 46-yard touchdown catch from Luke Illies.

Mid-Northwest Gopher Gold District Week 7 scores on October 11:
West Central Area 24, Browerville 0
Upsala/Swanville Area 46, Benson 0
Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg 41, Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City 0

Area Week 7 football scores on October 11:
New London-Spicer 55, St. Cloud Apollo 23
Canby 27, Yellow Medicine East 6
Hancock 32, Hillcrest Lutheran Academy 28
Pierz 67, Montevideo 34
Moorhead 22, Alexandria 20
Rock Ridge 49, Duluth Denfeld 32
BOLD 54, Lakeview 6
Albany 21, Minnewaska Area 0
Morris Area/Chokio-Alberta 32, Perham 13
Melrose Area 28, Rockford 27
Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted 21, Sauk Centre 0
Osakis 44, Royalton 14
Renville County West 57, Madelia 6

GAME NIGHT! At OUR house! *OVERTIME for kids event also tonight

This is about as terrific of a fall day as one can ask for across the Bonanza Valley and Jaguar Country! FULL sunshine and temperatures in the mid to upper 60s! Wow! It's crazy to also consider just how hot it got yesterday, Thursday, with a high of 83 degrees!

FIRST! Before I jump into football...this is important! Students in grades 7-12 are invited to Lucky Shots Bowling Alley after tonight's game. You can read all the details by clicking over to the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website: https://shorturl.at/E4FnT. We are super blessed to have B-B-E's Fellowship of Christian Athletes organization running strong. We also want to give a shout out to the Big Grove/Crow River/Grace Lutheran Parish community for their efforts at supporting the B-B-E FCA chapter.

Also! I just posted the agenda for Monday's Brooten city council meeting at my editor's blog. You can see the agenda by clicking here: https://lifeinbonanzavalley.blogspot.com.

Let's talk football!
We've got Friday Night Lights VII on deck tonight for our B-B-E Jaguars football team, as they are set to host Long Prairie-Grey Eagle in a Mid-Northwest Gopher Gold District game. Kickoff for the game at our stadium in Belgrade is at 7 p.m. In leading up to the game, the coaching staff will have Parents Night to honor and recognize the men and women who play a direct role in raising their sons on the team.

As for the LP-GE Thunder, they have a 1-5 record.

Game updates... to follow here after 7:00 p.m..

After the 1st quarter, the Jaguars have a 42-0 lead.

At halftime: BBE 48, LP-GE 0.

After the third quarter, the score is 48 to 0. The entire third quarter has been played with running time. In fact, they began running time some time late in the second quarter.

Jaguars remain in first place! and Sports Show No. 8 (VIDEOS, UPDATES)

On the heels of a 3-1 win at Royalton tonight, the B-B-E Jaguars volleyball team has cleared a big hurdle to achieving one big season goal: earning Central Minnesota Conference hardware. The task at hand tonight was a big one, as the Royals and Jaguars entered the match in a three-way tie for first place along with Maple Lake.

After splitting the first two sets, the Jaguars won game three 25-18. In game four, they played outstanding volleyball the entire way in a 25-14 win.

Here's a few notes I jotted down in game four tonight...
With Abigail Lien on the service line, the Jaguars have rattled off a 5-0 run and now hold a 14-5 lead. The lead expanded to 17-8 with Kamie Fischer on the service line, and the Royals called their final timeout of the set. B-B-E's lead expanded even more to a 23-10 advantage, but the Royals got a side out on a kill. Royalton got another kill for a 23-12 score, but Kadynce Haider knocked down a kill to bring game and match point.

The Jaguars closed out game four with an ace stuff, although I could not verify who earned that off of the Hudl livestream. Game scores: 25-20, 24-26, 25-18, 25-14.

A two-week layoff from recording a sports show has ended...here's my 8th sports podcast of this fall:


Now 24-3 overall, the No. 10-ranked Jaguars improve to 5-1 in the CMC and have one more big hurdle ahead of them: beating Paynesville Area on their floor next Tuesday night. That match will conclude the regular season. The Bulldogs are currently theoretically still in the hunt for CMC hardware with a 13-7 overall record and a 4-2 mark in the CMC. Tonight, they traveled the short trip south for a border battle with Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City.

Circling back to football...here's a video that features the opening minutes of the 2nd quarter at Browerville:


That's all I've got for tonight. I played "hooky" from work for a couple of hours and enjoyed watching Hunter Killer on Netflix. It is a great movie! I highly recommend it. And goodness...my ears are still ringing from blowing my referee whistle tonight at the 5th/6th grade volleyball match with New London-Spicer.

A few Friday updates...today is going to be a great day! I just heard news that the B-B-E Pep Band will perform for the second time this fall at tonight's football game! Before tonight's game, I'll get a new blog post added that will feature game updates tonight for Friday Night Lights VII. It will be Parents Night as the Jaguars host Long Prairie-Grey Eagle.

Here's a video featuring Josh Walstrom's incredible touchdown catch last Friday at Browerville...


More to come. We have full sunshine again today! An absolutely perfect, wonderful fall day is upon us. Don't forget all the upcoming events this weekend...Saturday night will be super busy! Events have been promoted for Saturday in this week's newspaper for the city of Elrosa (steak fry) plus the Lutheran church communities of Crow River and Norway Lake. Read all about it in The Voice! (Also online at the newspaper's community calendar: https://www.bonanzavalleyvoice.com.

And for parents of grades 7-12 students! On Friday after the football game, your children (in those grades) are invited to Lucky Shots Bowling Alley, where the B-B-E Fellowship of Christian Athletes will be hosting an Overtime party with FREE bowling and pizza!!! This is a great event for your kids to take part in...even if they didn't go to the football game. (I hope they do, of course!) This event will run from 9 to 11:30 p.m., and please make sure you can get your child at or before 11:30. Thank you!

Central MN Conference volleyball scores on October 10:
Paynesville Area 3, Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City 1
Kimball Area 3, Holdingford 0
Maple Lake 3, Eden Valley-Watkins 1

Area volleyball scores on October 10:
Sauk Rapids 3, Willmar 1
New London-Spicer 3, Rockford 0
HL-W-W 3, Litchfield 2
Sauk Centre 3, Montevideo 0 Minnewaska Area 3, BOLD 1
Morris Area/Chokio-Alberta 3, Benson 0
MACCRAY 3, Ortonville 0
Minneota 3, Renville County West 0

Jaguar volleyball battling at Royalton

In a key Central Minnesota Conference match on the road, the B-B-E Jaguars volleyball team has a 2-1 set lead at Royalton tonight. They won the third game by a 25-18 score. Game three is set to begin shortly after 8 p.m. It is also Dig Pink night for the Royals volleyball program.

In game four, the Jaguars led 3-1 but have fallen behind 4-3 after a Royalton ace serve.

With a string of excellent serves and once ace serve by Adley Hagen, the Jaguars rattled off a 6-0 run to go up 9-4. The Royals have called a timeout. More to come in a new blog post! Hit refresh!

A (slight) delay to the newspapers! and TENNIS results

Oh, boy!

Today, the only way you can see the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper is to see a copy on the newsstand (RJ's Mini Mart gets stacked first, and then Coop's Corner and Belgrade Hardware later today). Due to what was about a 40-minute delay at the printing press, the annual U.S. Postal Service audit of the newspaper has been delayed from this afternoon until tomorrow morning.

What it means is that Post Office box holders in Brooten won't see The Voice until approximately 10 a.m. tomorrow (Thursday) instead of 3 p.m. today - which they're used to on Wednesdays.

The good news: Brooten rural routes will see the newspaper as usual on Thursday. However, Belgrade rural routes won't see it until Friday as well as Glenwood, New London and other nearby routes. There's really nothing earth-shattering in this week's Voice, so there's no harm to these delays. Life will go on. The auditing of newspapers is a key function of the USPS and ensures that what newspapers declare to the public is what is actually sent out as true "readership" each week. I appreciate the work of the U.S.P.S during a time when they continue to struggle will having full staffing. Locally, we're in pretty good shape - which we should all be grateful for! 

In playoff news...
Six members of the B-B-E Jaguars girls' tennis team are competing in the Section 6A tournament today at the Rogers Tennis Club. In singles action, I saw that Skylar Knight-DeWeerd defeated Sauk Centre's Emily Wojtanowitz in a hard-fought battle by scores of 6-4, 6-3. She then faced top-seeded Leah Maddock of Osakis and fell in straight sets.

Also in singles play, Hannah Hirman won her opener by defeating Amy Hernandez of LPGE/U-SA in a 6-0, 6-0 win. Hirman then fell in straight sets to Litchfield's Isla Dille.

In doubles action, B-B-E's duos of Ellan Fischer/Grace Berndt and Izzy Graham/Bree Thieschafer fell in quarterfinal-round match ups. That's all I have as of now. I haven't seen where the consolation brackets are, but I'll catch up on this later today.

Now it's time to get outside in the sunshine!!

On Thursday...the newspaper website has been updated: https://www.bonanzavalleyvoice.com. Time to get back outside! A high of about 83 degrees is coming!!

Beautiful, incredible fall day (VIDEO)

The Bonanza Valley area is experiencing an incredible day of fall weather today. It appears that we've reached a high of 68 degrees with full sunshine...as of 4 o'clock this afternoon, there's not a puff of cloud in the sky. Blue sky for everyone! The low tonight is supposed to plummet to 37 degrees.

In this blog post, I'll add a video from tonight's Sonic Escape concert at Olson Auditorium. I hope you can attend in person! Remember: it's FREE!

...added Monday night...here's the final minute of the final song performed tonight at Olson Auditorium:


As you can see and hear for yourself in the video, they are both incredible musicians! Additional coverage will follow in this week's Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper.

Over 370 Color FUND Run photos have been uploaded at the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper SmugMug gallery. You can find the two albums by clicking over to the 2024 events folder at this direct link: https://bonanzavalley.smugmug.com/2024-B-B-EBonanza-Valley-area-events.

I'm finally basically caught up on adding sports photos from Homecoming week to the newspaper's Fall 2024 sports galleries. You can find them at this direct link: https://bonanzavalley.smugmug.com/BBE-Fall-Sports-2024.

Jaguar volleyball champions at Alexandria! (VIDEO)

In a tournament they traditionally haven't played particularly well at, the No. 11-ranked B-B-E Jaguars volleyball team turned in a championship performance today to claim the Alexandria Invitational title. I'm still combing over the statistics, but it was incredible to note that they went three sets against neighboring Minnewaska Area and came out on top in the tiebreaker by a 16-14 margin! That's incredible! The Lakers are a team on the upswing and one of the top teams in the West Central Conference.

The Jaguars also defeated Class 3A Fergus Falls in three sets with a 15-12 win in game three. Against Class 3A Alexandria, current front-runners in the Central Lakes Conference, the Jaguars won 25-19, 25-23. Seven ace serves and 25 percent hitting played a big part in defeating the host Cardinals, who have a 10-1 record for a half-match lead over willmar for first place.

B-B-E also faced BOLD, the current fourth-place team in the West Central Conference, who they defeated 25-20, 25-14.

This improves B-B-E's overall record to 23-3 with two matches left on the schedule: October 10 at Royalton and October 15 at Paynesville Area. Both of those matches will determine whether or not the Jaguars can earn at least a share of the Central Minnesota Conference title. They are MUST win matches!

Through all four matches in Alexandria, Kacey Fischer had 39 kills, while Adley Hagen added 37 kills.

Here's a video from Thursday's match at Maple Lake...from late in game two:


I fully believe that if the Jaguars would have come out on top in game two, they could have prevailed in three or four sets.

More to come. I have a pile of stats to review. I also have a couple items to clean up in the Friday Night Lights VI post.

Sunday night updates...
I hope you can help spread the word for the upcoming concert that will be held on Monday, October 7 (tomorrow) at B-B-E high school's Olson Auditorium. It's been included in the Belgrade Library's events section that I try to publish at least 2 or 3 times each month in the Bonanza Valley Voice. The Belgrade Library and Great River Regional Library (GRRL) system have a paid advertisement in last week's newspaper that helped pay for color ink on the center spread of Homecoming week photos. Let's support the groups and organizations that support The Voice! Best of all - the concert is FREE! To read more, you can click over to The Voice website: https://shorturl.at/eYY3N. Included in that web article is a link to read an extensive biography on Sonic Escape.

Due to having taken well over 1,000 pictures during Homecoming week, I am severely back-logged on getting the Bonanza Valley Voice SmugMug photo galleries updated. Tonight, I finally got the Homecoming Pep Fest photos added. You can find that gallery by clicking here: https://shorturl.at/qwTR6. For a photo gallery from the Homecoming Tailgating party and pre-game festivities before Friday Night Lights V, you can click here: https://shorturl.at/pF17o.