Ball Don't Lie

But what if it's the wrong ball?

That's the situation we found ourselves in during the 2nd quarter of the Girls AA Title game. With Gorham nursing a small lead and Oxford Hills ice-cold from the floor (they shot 3-18 in the first quarter), the officials called time disappeared into the bowels of the hockey area to get a new basketball.

According to Oxford Hills coach Nate Pelletier, the ball was flat, so they subbed in a new ball.

And boy did Oxford Hills prefer that new ball.

After the new ball came in, Oxford Hills went to NBA Jam levels of hot, shooting 53% the rest of the way and blowing the doors off Gorham, even with the Rams getting this gift from the Peter Webb All-Stars.

This was late at the end the of the half and looked late live, but it was certainly closer than the TA shot.

Just to be clear, though, that would not be reviewable if we added replay, as you probably already know because you read my column in the Bangor Daily News on replay.

There was no deliberation from the refs on this.

Anyway, what looked like a brewing upset turned into a rout. Sierra Carson was simply too much for the Rams. She ended up with 9 steals and 5 assists, all of them seemingly to Tristen Derenburger for 3's.

In the boys game, we had what can generously be described as a rock fight.

Portland couldn't buy a basket and it was a lot of "put-back missed" on the iPad. South Portland's defense was a big part of it, but man was this a physical game that the refs weren't ready for. At all. There were multiple sequences where a player got hammered, only to keep going and get a touch foul later in the possession. It was the sort of game where both fan sections were booing the refs and I'm not sure I blame them. Even when Portland was trying to foul late, it was hard to know what they'd call.

You know who had a great game? The Portland and South Portland student sections.

It's too bad they're so far from the court.

Portland never found the bottom of the basket--they hit some 3's late to make it sort of interesting, but shot 28% for the game--and South Portland won their 13th Gold Ball.

In Bangor, Forest Hills brought presents.

But it wasn't enough.

Southern Aroostook sweeps the D games for the second year in a row. I'm not sure if that's ever been done before.

At the Classification Meeting we got some more clarity on next season. As suspected, we're sticking with the 5 class system, but (as rumored) AA will be one region, so no longer will an 0-18 AA school automatically make the tourney!

The MPA went into Executive Session for 3 hours for this, which feels excessive, but apparently they don't want people live-tweeting the back and forth of the discussion, which is fair. If you're wondering, the type of organization they are--legally--means they can go into Executive Session whenever they want and for whatever reason they feel like.

I'm told there's still some errors and kinks to work out (Gardiner in A South?), but here's what we have right now.

Boys

Girls

The next meeting is March 16th

It's the final day of the season and we've maybe saved the best for last, as all 4 games would normally be a shoe-in for the Game of the Day.

I had Spruce Mountain coach Scott Bessey on to talk through all the games, scheduling, and more.

This is working its way to podcast platforms, but it's already on Spotify, so you can listen in your car. Subscribe!

The Model's picks for today's games are after the jump.