The AA Round-Up: January 30th, 2024

Finally, an upset!

Boys: Oxford Hills 60, Portland 59 (OT)

The model favored Portland (12-3) by 14.1 points entering their Tuesday matchup at Oxford Hills (6-9), but the Vikings had other plans.

Quickly they took a 16-10 lead over AA North's 3rd seed after one quarter. They actually led 41-32 after 3 quarters as well.

Joe Russo's squad had fight left in them late in regulation, using a 20-11 4th quarter to tie it up and send it to OT.

In overtime, Holden Shaw gave the Vikings 4 of their 8 total points, which edged out the Bulldogs 7.

Jeissy Khamis' 24 points led all scorers and Shaw dropped in 17 to lead the Vikings.

In the grand scheme of things, the loss doesn't matter much in the standings for Portland. They entered the game at 87.4% to end the season in 3rd, and I wouldn't expect that number to change very much.

Oxford Hills picked up their 6th win on the year and jumped Lewiston for 4th place in the North.

Boys: Gorham 62, Bonny Eagle 48

We've got our second class AA player to surpass 1,000 points on either side, last night it was Gorham senior Ashton Leclerc.

Class AA's leading scorer knocked down a three for the first points of the contest on either side.

When I talked to him earlier this morning, he told me he was shooting it as soon as he caught it, no matter where he was on the floor. A 30 foot fadeaway three for your one thousandth career point? Talk about doing it with style.

He finished the game at 1,029 career points, 32 in the contest. Griffin Gammon was behind him at 15.

While 98% of the night was good spirits and smiles, the other 2% was the fact that Caden Smith left the game after rolling his ankle on the way down from a transition layup.

The hope is that he'll be back before the playoffs, but it's certainly a situation to monitor.

Girls: Thornton Academy 59, Sanford 51

Addison Sulikowski (22 points) and Emma Lizotte (20 points) got back on track in the scoring column while continuing their quest to right the Trojan ship in their senior season.

Thornton led 32-17 at halftime but had to survive a 23-14 4th quarter run from Sanford, one that included 7 three pointers.

The Spartans were without Julissa McBarron after she exited Saturday's game vs Gorham with injury, but freshman Paige Sevigny stepped up in her absence.

She had 20 with 4 3's, leading the late Sanford comeback.

Sanford now sits in 4th, Thornton right behind them in 5th. The teams have similar paths for their last three contests.

Sanford: 7. Bonny Eagle, 6. Massabesic, 2. South Portland

Thornton Academy: 6. Massabesic, 3. Scarborough, 7. Bonny Eagle

Matching 2 bottom 3 teams in the South and two teams fighting for a potential bye. Say TA wins out and Sanford drops one, they'll take over the 4 seed and Cole Purvis will get to call a home quarterfinal game for TATV.

Sanford controls their own destiny though, if both teams win out it would be the Spartans who host the 4/5 game because they already lead TA by 5 heals and have a chance to pick up 5 more since SoPo's PI is +5 over Scarborough.

Boys: Windham 55, Cheverus 51

The Eagles' balanced offensive attack boosted them past 2nd place Cheverus (13-3) on the road.

Leo McNabb poured in 33 of his own for the Stags including 22 in the second half, when he went on a 20 point stretch by himself between the 3rd and 4th quarters.

He was followed by Jameson Fitzpatrick at 8 and then two more players at 4.

I think it's really encouraging, if you're a Windham fan, to see the Eagles go into Cheverus and beat the team directly below them in the standings.

They've got two losses on the year and it was at Gorham (67-40) and at Portland (55-54) just last Thursday, so to be able to buckle in and win a big road game is enormous for them heading into the playoffs.

Elsewhere:

South Portland blew Deering out behind 21 from Gabe Galarraga, Manny Hidalgo added 18... Maddie Fitzpatrick's 20 points kept the Cheverus undefeated train going over Windham... Sanford's boys survived a scare from TA but pulled out a 52-50 win... Ella Pelletier had 17 in Oxford Hills' 7th straight win... and according to VarsityMaine.com SoPo's Darius Johnson put up 5 points and 20 (TWENTY) rebounds!