Belfast Beats Oceanside

Think back to last year.

The Patriots still had Mac Jones. Luka was on the Mavs. Cooper Flagg was playing for Montverde. Elon Musk didn't have control over the government. It was a simpler time.

And everyone in Maine was all up in arms about teams scoring too many points. Ok, some things don't change. But the biggest issue of them all was Oceanside's 126-38 win over Belfast. People were outraged. A crime against sportsmanship!

Flash forward to last night:

They're understandably very excited, as they should be!

Landon Economy had 21 points and Trevin Ripley had a double-double (10 & 11) and the game winner to help Belfast pull off one of the more remarkable one-season turnarounds in recent memory.

The win moves them up to 7th in the B North heal points, but it's unlikely they'll be able to stay there

They've got one game left--against a Winslow team they beat earlier this year--and there's a lot of heal points in play there.

Let's update the B North Tourney Odds

Sure.

Tourney Odds are updated.

I wrote the other day about the GNG boys, who had picked themselves up off the mat after a 2-10 start to punch their ticket to the tournament.

Turns out they aren't done.

In overtime against a Brunswick team trying to get to the 3 seed, GNG's Johnny Patenaude hit this ridiculous shot at the buzzer.

Patenaude finished with 31 and is making a late charge at the Mr. Basketball conversation. Trevor Garrish had 22 for Brunswick, who I think will now be in the 4/5 game.

We had a couple of 1,000 point scorers last night.

First, let's go to Cony, for the game that was supposed to be the Game of the Day, but I flexed it out. That was a mistake.

Abby Morrill got her 1,000th point in the second quarter, but not without some drama.

You can watch the video and the Lawrence fans definitely don't applaud Morrill's milestone. I wonder if that was organized in any way or there's just that much Lawrence/Cony animosity. Either way, I don't have a problem with it. The act of refusing to politely clap is perhaps more of an acknowledgment of your rival's achievement than clapping would be. Hatred is better than indifference, you know?

Morrill finished with 26.

Anyway, this game wasn't done.

Just a couple of days after losing to Lawrence by nearly 40, Cony matched Lawrence blow-for-blow, even rallying after getting down 8 after 3 quarters to pull within 1 in the final minute despite Lawrence getting 38 points from Maddy Provost before she fouled out. Cony hit a 3 with 1.2 seconds left to cut the lead to 1, but couldn't get the ball back and Lawrence survived a thriller, 74-73.

Mike Mandell was there.

Lawrence girls basketball tops Cony again in riveting, down-to-the wire battle

Lawrence’s Maddie Provost and Cony’s Abby Morrill — who scored her 1,000th point — dueled it out as Bulldogs prevailed 74-73.

Kennebec Journal and Morning SentinelMike MandellKennebec Journal/Morning Sentinel

The other Game of the Day also had a 1,000 point scorer.

Mount View beat Erskine 60-48 to move to 4th in C North.

Freeport's Conner Smith hit 6 3's, including this game-winner against Mt. Ararat.

We had a couple of big scoring eruptions that deserve being called out:

-- Mary Allen had 42 in Central's win over Bucksport
-- Wyatt Benoit hit 7 3's scored 41 in TA's win over Oxford Hills

Elsewhere

Cyran Carleglio had 22 points, 11 rebounds and 12 assists in Hodgdon's win over Central Aroostook, who got 30 from Jahleel Joseph....Maren Maxon had 22 in Wells' win over Cape...Chase Flewelling had 18 in Easton's win...Lilly Burtt had 19 in Central Aroostook's win...Gabriella Silva's 19 led Biddeford to an easy win over Bonny Eagle...Cape got 22 from Eli Smith to beat Wells...Abdirahman Dakane's game-high 22 was nearly enough for Lewiston to beat Cheverus...Billy Birks' 20 led Falmouth past Biddeford...Atticus Whitten's 20 got Gorham by Sanford...Winslow's Braden Rodrigue had 29, but it wasn't enough to beat Jacob Gibbs (19) and Colin Schlobohm (16) of Leavitt...Bryce Stacey's 17 led Sacopee Valley over NYA...Scarborough's Carter Blanche's big third quarter was the difference against Diing Maiwen (22) and Edward Little...Jack Brocke's 20 and Taylor Varney's 18 led St. Dom's over OOB...Peyton Reckards' 22 & 10 and Ricardo Louis' 16 & 10 were more than enough for Temple against Rangeley...Reese MacDonald dropped 27 on Poland...Kyle Lamson dropped 24 in Cheverus' win over Lewiston...Torie Tibbetts' 19 & 13 led Hall-Dale to a win against Monmouth...Caitlyn McCoy and Gabby Smith combined for 40 as Leavitt made short work of Winslow...Natalie Lathrop and Isabelle Tice combined for 40 as Marshwood made short work of Noble...Cali Pomerleau scored 17 as Mt. Ararat led Freeport 38-13 at the half...Ella Pelletier's 23 and Gabbie Tibbetts' 21 nearly matched TA's 45...Nya Avery's 18 & 12 led York to a win over Poland.

Haley Jones has an update on the Oak Hill incident.

Unruly fans disrupt Wales basketball game; 8 escorted out

RSU 4 Superintendent Katy Grondin says 3 fans were ejected and 5 asked to leave for their behavior in Oak Hill girls game.

Press HeraldHaley JonesSun Journal

There's a quote in here from Oak Hill superintendent Katy Grondin

Obviously it’s disappointing to see that, because I know the tradition of Oak Hill and our school department is being supportive and wanting to have good sportsmanship. I know the athletic director has spoken personally to folks, and we’re going to keep having those conversations and putting things into place, because we also want to make sure schools that are coming to us can see that we’re taking this type of incident seriously, and we want people to feel comfortable coming to our schools to watch contests like that.

I hope (those involved are) reflecting; we all have lessons learned, and hopefully they’ve reflected on perhaps (how) they could have handled things differently. Hopefully, they’ll be returning to be those fans we know they can be, which are positive support for our athletes and respecting our officials.

This all sounds good, but my (very limited) experience with Oak Hill fans and the experiences of nearly everyone I've spoken to in the MVC about this has repeated that Oak Hill absolutely does not have a reputation of good sportsmanship.

So I guess we'll see. It sounds like Grondin has a lot of work to do to turn this around.

Here's a nice bit of sportsmanship in last night's MDI/Ellsworth game.

Chris Popper has more.

MDI and Ellsworth Girls Basketball Teams Combine for a Magical Moment on Senior Night [VIDEO]

Two of the biggest rivals, MDI and Ellsworth combined to create a magical moment on Senior Night at Ellsworth High School on Tuesday, February 4th. Check out the video and see for yourself

WDEA AM 1370Chris Popper

Maybe we should just put the kids in charge.

So you may have heard it's going to snow Thursday. Some schools are moving their Thursday games to Wednesday. Some are moving them to Friday. Some are doing both. And some might actually get played on Thursday. It's a mess. So I'm just going to list the next couple days by the day they were scheduled and we'll wing it.

But we'll pull the Game of the Day by the Wednesday games.

So let's go back to B North boys.

Ellsworth has locked up a bye. That much we know. They'll be the 2 seed.

MDI is likely going to be the 4 or the 5, but in B North that's the line between a bye and a home prelim game, so it's an important distinction.

There's also quite a bit of competition for that bye!

MDI is 38.5% to get the bye and 23.5% to beat Ellsworth, so there's quite a lot of ways they could hold on to the spot with a loss.

But a win would be easier!

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