Blood Sport

I went to Lincoln Academy for the most promising game I could get to in time after work.

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You can watch me get more tired as the week goes on (and as the season goes on), which is super fun and doesn't make me self-conscious at all.

The game got off to a not-great start when Winslow's leading scorer Braden Rodrigue picked up 2 fouls in the first 53 seconds of the game and, well, let's just say the old guys on the very pro-Lincoln Academy LCTV.org feed were openly questioning the calls. Not a great sign!

As you might imagine, the Winslow fans were even less happy.

A quick side note on expressing your displeasure with the officials from the stands. You can't yell bloody murder for every little thing. If you start at a 9 in the first quarter and stay at 9, it's just noise. It has no impact. You can't argue everything. It doesn't help to scream "THREE SECONDS" on every possession, even if there's a violation every possession. Pick your spots. Take 3 or 4 possessions in a row off. When the refs really do something you dislike, then you scream bloody murder and it'll have WAY more impact.

Anyway, with Rodrigue in foul trouble, Lincoln Academy raced out to an early 23-12 lead after 1, with EJ Hunt doing most of the damage. He had 10 in the first quarter. Then, with 3:48 left in the half, Rodrigue fell to the ground after taking an errant elbow to the face. He came up bleeding, a stream of blood clearly going down his face as he walked the length of the court while the refs gave Lincoln Academy the ball to inbound it. I could see he was bleeding. The guys on LCTV could see it. The ref staring at him from 10 feet away, not so much. Eventually they stopped play and if you think the Winslow fans were mad before, they were ready to riot after that. Rodrigue sat while they attempted to patch him up and Lincoln extended their lead.

He would need stitches after the game, but he checked back in for the second half and it was a process of seeing just how long he could stay in the game before he started bleeding again. Kudos to Lincoln's trainer Meagan Day for staying on top of this throughout the game.

Meanwhile, the game got more physical. Everyone got angrier. For a good 5 minutes, they just stopped calling block/charge plays. As in, two kids collide. One goes down. Play on! At one point, my stepdaughter asked if anyone had been ejected yet.

Which is all to say that Lincoln won handily, but it was such a mess from the beginning that I'm not sure how much you'd want to judge Winslow based on last night's game. It might be the situation where you turn Madden off in the third quarter because you just can't catch a break.

E.J. Hunt led the way for Lincoln with 19 points and 5 assists. The Hunt twins really controlled the game on both ends of the floor. Braden Rodrigue finished with 25 points and I'm not sure how many stitches.

Completely unrelated, but did you know there's a need for more officials? It's true!

“We’ll start you out with third and fourth grade. We try to ease you into it. I also make the commitment to those junior officials that either myself, or another veteran official that volunteers for it, will sit courtside. That way, if anything weird happens, or very unique or unusual, they’ll be there to help talk them through it,” said Cournoyer.

And it's free!

Jr. IAABO online basketball officiating course planned for next month

Feb. 24-27

WABIBen Barr

Here's a wild sequence from the game between Morse and Medomak Valley. You're going to hear LCTV's Larry Sidelinger on the call.

That's Medomak's Gabe Lash with the block. He finished with 11 points as Medomak won by 51 to stay unbeaten and keep pace with York, who beat Freeport.

York's got a very small lead and has played one extra game, so we'll see what the Tourney Odds look like when I run them later today, but York and Medomak seem to be creating a little bit of separation from Spruce and Lincoln Academy.

Central's Mary Allen set a school record with 44 points in a win over Orono.

Congratulations!

Well this is maybe the shot of the year.

By the way, here's the commercial. I'll save you the Googling.

If I remember correctly this was a Super Bowl ad.

Here's another buzzer-beater, this time from Bangor Christian.

Elsewhere:

The Biddeford boys used a 29-0 run to put away Massabesic...Nolan Ames scored 10 of his 30 points in overtime as Camden survived a scare from Skowhegan...Falmouth's Davis Mann dropped 31 on Westbrook...Kade Ippolito's 27 out-dueled Jeremy Therrien's 26 as Greely beat Wells...Ty Bernier scored 20 as Messo picked up a big win in the Stable...Nick Jamo went off for 29 as Poland blew out Sacopee Valley...Portland raced out to a 20-1 lead and Lucas LeGage finished with 26 in a win over Deering...Jack Downs gave Traip 24, but it wasn't enough to beat St. Dom's...Peyton Reckards had 16 & 14 in Temple's win over Islesboro...Harry Louis had 32 as Valley blew out Forest Hills...Liam Tiernan's 29 for Marshwood wasn't enough to take down Windham. They were led by Creighty Dickson's 22...Evan Oranellas and Ian Lawrence each scored 22 in Yarmouth's win over GNG...Hall-Dale's Sierra Gibbons got a double-double (26 & 11) to best Celia Bergdahl's 20 & 13 for Maranacook...Mackenzie Robbins' 17 paced Madison past Mountain Valley...Kytana Williamson had 25 in Medomak's win at Morse...Kaitlyn Frost had 23 points in Monmouth's 83-6 win over Lisbon...Mt. Ararat used a big third quarter to rally past Brunswick...Oceanside's Aubrianna Hoose dropped 27 on Leavitt...Mollie Puffer had 20 in Sanford's win over TA...Avery Bessey scored 24 in Spruce's win against Oak Hill...Madeline Hill had 20 and Liana Hartwell was on triple-double watch with 10 points, 15 boards, 7 assists, and 9 steals as Valley rolled by Forest Hills...Maren Maxon's 24 led Wells against Greely.

I see a lot of fundraisers in my inbox [mainebasketballrankings at gmail dot com], but this is one of the better ones I've gotten.

Camden Hills is hosting a scrimmage between CMCC and Bridgton Academy with proceeds going to the Windjammer boosters.

But, there's more. Before the fundraiser scrimmage is the Camden/Oceanside boys/girls doubleheader, which promises to be two pretty good games.

I'm planning on being there.

This is the worst slate of games of the season so far. There's only 2 games with a Stax Index over 70. The good news is Saturday looks loaded.

The Mattanawcook boys are off to a great start. They're 9-0. They're 2nd in the state in scoring at 73.1 ppg (Caribou, 76.3) and 2nd in %Perfect at 97.8% (Valley, 99.1%). They haven't played the hardest class C schedule and it'll actually get easier from here on out. So I wouldn't expect them to be tested tonight and I'm not sure they'll be tested during the regular season.

As for Central, they've won 3 of their last 4, but this is a whole different level.

Again, I'm not going to lie to you and tell you this is going to be a good game (unlike some people). Because it sure looks like a blowout.

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