A Coven of Witches

Week One brought us some fantastic action and the usual share of surprises. But the Ramblers gave us the biggest one of all.

Watch: Winthrop football opens with an impressive shutout win over Leavitt

The Ramblers convert turnovers into points and deal the Hornets their first setback since November 2021.

Kennebec Journal and Morning SentinelNathan FournierSun Journal

People were understandably high on Winthrop, but I don't know how many people were this high. Sure, Leavitt has lost a bunch of talent since last year, but thirty to nothing? I don't think anyone expected that.

Week one is nothing if not a reason to overreact, so I had Adam Robinson join me on the podcast to overreact to everything about Week 1.

This was a really fun conversation, even if you ignore the fact that neither Adam nor I remembered that Halloween weekend is a playoff weekend. That's on us. We'll do better.

You can watch the video on YouTube:

Or you can listen on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or anywhere else you podcast.

Week 1 Overreactions with Adam Robinson

Week 1 of football season is in the books and it was awesome. The Patriots won!!! Notre Dame lost!!! Leavitt got shut out?!?! OOB scored HOW MANY? Adam Robinson

Apple Podcasts

In the podcast, I mentioned a tackle I saw in the Medomak Valley/Hermon game (spoiler: Hermon is really good) and I was able to find the video of it, courtesy of Eastern Maine Sports, who apparently was there? Guys, come say hi!

Overall, the Model did pretty well in the first week.

Football: 26-15 (63.41%)
Boys Soccer: 90-29 (75.6%)
Girls Soccer: 110-25 (81.5%)
Field Hockey: 60-17 (77.9%)

That's not a great start for football, but a fantastic start for girls soccer! Hopefully football rallies.

Remember that the Model will take a couple of games to adjust to the new talent levels for each team, so maybe wait a week or so before yelling at me online.

Fall Sports Rankings

GOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLL

Maine Basketball RankingsLucas McNelly

Also, the Heal Points you've come to prefer to the MPA's website are up and running.

Of course, this is a paid feature, but well worth it!

This week, there's a great lineup of games, but two things stood out.

First:

This is obviously a fantastic cause and hopefully it spreads to basketball in the winter.

In Brewer, we have a one-of-a-kind matchup, featuring a team from Massachusetts?

There's only two schools in the country who use the Witches mascot--our own Brewer Witches and a team from a certain town in Massachusetts that, uh, doesn't have the greatest history with witches, but ok.

This is actually the first time a football team from Maine has played a team from Massachusetts in a countable game.

You'll notice in the predictions below that it has Brewer playing "New Hampshire". I'm not going to make an entire MA Model just for one game, because the hell with that, so all teams from away are lumped in under the heading of "New Hampshire" and treated as one team.

It should be a great time in Brewer.

J. Kyle Mann from The Ringer has a very cool profile out on Cooper Flagg.

Mann goes in-depth on Flagg as a prospect and his growth over the last several years (there's a lot of footage from Maine high school games in here) and even gets into some heady areas. Did you know there's 3 type of leapers? I did not.

It's absolutely worth your time.

Cooper Flagg Is Running Toward the Grind

Is Cooper Flagg’s bid for stardom legitimate or far-fetched? The Ringer’s J. Kyle Mann attempts to find out.

The RingerJ. Kyle Mann

I go to a lot of games and more and more I find I want to be as far away from the parents as humanly possible.

The press pass helps.

I was at a field hockey game the other day and the parents went back and forth between asking what the rules are and screaming at the refs for blowing the call. It wasn't great. It also wasn't a surprise.

Game of the Day

The slate of games this weekend has a ton of potential, with 4 games sporting a Stax Index over 80, including a Massabesic/Cheverus game that's a literal toss-up.

But the top game is a really interesting matchup between Oceanside and Foxcroft Academy. Class C looks like it's more winnable than it was last year and Oceanside is in the mix as much as anyone. Meanwhile, Foxcroft put up 71 in their Week 1 win over Belfast. But will they be able to hang with a Winthrop team that just dismantled Leavitt?

The Model's picks for this and the rest of today's games are after the jump.