Caribou and SoPo and Windham! Oh My!

They say the hockey rink (a.k.a. the Cross Insurance Whatever in Portland) is the worst venue and in a lot of ways it is. The parking is terrible. It's cold. The court is a million miles away from the fans. It's obviously not designed for basketball games. And there's like 9 different 3-point lines.

In the 3rd quarter of a semifinal blowout, the place can be deader than the parties in Swingers. But in a state title game with crowds that show up? It's electric. And you knew Caribou would show up. A couple of Caribou fans assured me that they were more sober this time around because the game was earlier. That's fair. Harder to pregame for a 1pm tip. The maroon and gold were predictably out in force, but so was the Biddeford crowd, perhaps determined to show up for a very young team that has to be thinking their title window spans more than this year.

If you're too lazy to watch the video (smash that subscribe button!), without having seen Caribou in person, I thought Biddeford was the better team but they're sooooo young that anything could happed. Plus, Caribou had the best player and it's hard to argue with that.

You could tell me Caribou would win by 20, Biddeford would win by 20, or we'd get double overtime. All equally likely.

When Caribou led 12-2 behind 8 points from Madelynn Deprey, it looked like we might be in for the first option, especially with a team as young as Biddeford that has a starting lineup of all freshmen and sophomores. This would be the test.

Out of the timeout, Anna Smyth got fouled and hit both free throws, then Jordyn Crump forced a Deprey turnover, Mia Mariello stole it on 3 straight Caribou possessions, and suddenly we had a ball game. The kids are alright.

And then the Peter Webb All-Stars got involved.

Or didn't, depending on your vintage.

The Caribou fans were livid with what Biddeford's defense was "getting away with". I was sitting next to Bobby Russell (of WHOU games with Steve Carmichael fame) and he noted that this was the most physical team Caribou had seen all year.

Biddeford was pretty unhappy with this call on Crump to give her a third foul.

They weren't happy with Crump's next two fouls either and I can't say I blame them.

Caribou wasn't happy with this flop technical on a player who clearly took a knee to a sensitive area and came up in a lot of pain.

There was very little consistency with any of it, so I don't want to make it sound like one team benefited. Everyone was unhappy. As Bobby kept saying, "that's the thing you call?" It didn't help that one of the refs looked like Mose from The Office.

Let's jump to 3:01 left in the game with Caribou up 10.

Off a steal, Jordyn Crump got her own rebound and kicked it out to Natalia Silva for a three. A minute and a half later, Silva hit another 3. Caribou's Liv Adams picked up an offensive foul (her 5th). On that inbounds, Crump found Ayla Lagasse for a layup. Silva got a steal on the next inbounds and Crump tied it with a driving layup with 36 seconds left to complete the comeback and we went to overtime.

Thirteen seconds into overtime, Crump picked up her 5th foul.

So let's jump to 22.6 left and Biddeford had a 1-point lead. Deprey fouled Gabriella Silva, who made both free throws. Silva then striped Deprey on the other end and missed both free throws. Up three, Biddeford fouled Deprey with 1.5 second left. Deprey made the first free throw. And then.

She tried to miss the free throw, but she's too good of a shooter and made it anyone, then Quinn Corrigan stole the inbounds pass and got fouled. She made both free throws and Caribou won in a miracle finish.

Except...maybe not? Watch it again. Deprey went in early in an attempt to get the rebound and put-back, so the free throw shouldn't have counted and if the rest played out the way it did, Corrigan's free throws would have sent us to double-overtime. Or maybe on a dead ball inbounds pass, Biddeford doesn't rush. Who knows? It's a shame, because the game itself was fantastic.

In the end, Madelynn Deprey ended with 29 points, 15 boards, and 3 assists and the Caribou girls took home their first-ever Gold Ball.

Also I did say double-overtime and it kinda, shoulda gone double-overtime. Just saying.

In the second game, the Caribou boys used a 19-3 run in the third quarter to turn it into a rout. All the York shots that fell in the Regional Final would rim out. The bounces that went their way went to Caribou. And the Vikings capitalized. Boy did they capitalize.

They beat York 65-44 to win another Gold Ball. They had 4 players in double figures and posed for a group photo with their biggest fan in Washington, D.C.

Up in Bangor, the Valley girls finished their 21-0 season with a blowout of Central Aroostook.

And St. Dom's boys held off a Schenck rally to win their first ever Gold Ball.

How this is not Adam's profile picture yet, I'll never know.

The Penobscot Valley girls completed the 21-0 season after building a 32-9 lead over Hall-Dale.

And the Mount Abram Roadrunners raced out to a 24-4 lead to make short work of Mattanawcook.

The Bangor games were mostly a bust, is what I'm saying.

Ok, back to the hockey rink for the AA games, where South Portland was trying to join Caribou and get their own double Gold Balls.

In the Regional Final, the South Portland girls shot 62% from three, mostly from one spot on the floor, to overwhelm Gorham. Of course, you can't count on that happening again.

Cheverus came out with a clear plan to limit the damage from sophomore Annie Whitmore. They face guarded her. They threw doubles at her. They were determined to not let her beat them. So in her stead, Emma Travis (17 points and 10 rebounds) and Destiny Peters (16 & 12) made them pay. And when Whitmore managed to get loose, she reminded them of why they were so worried about her. She finished with 11, 7 boards, and 4 assists.

SoPo controlled this one most of the way. The only reason it was in doubt late was because Kylie Lamson kept Cheverus in it. Every time SoPo threatened to run away, Lamson would hit a big shot to stop the momentum. She finished with 26, but SoPo prevailed to win their first Gold Ball since 1986.

Could the SoPo boys complete the sweep? Or would Windham go back-to-back?

Side note: in Greg Levinsky's pre-game interview on Maine Public, he brought up that South Portland head coach Kevin Millington teaches at Windham (which I didn't know). Imagine what his week was like!

Windham got a huge break when SoPo's Manny Hidalgo picked up his second foul with 5:25 left in the first quarter and had to head to the bench. And you'd think that would be a big problem for SoPo, but not only did they survive the Hidalgo bench minutes. They won them, flipping a 1-point deficit into a 2-point lead by the time he checked back in with roughly 4 minutes left in the half. Most of that was on account of Darius Johnson (13 points and 8 boards in the first half) and Gabe Jackson (10 in the first half.

When Hidalgo returned, SoPo stretched the lead to 6 before Creighty Dickson hit a 3 to cut the lead to 3 at the half.

And then 41 second into the second half, Hidalgo picked up his third foul when he landed on A.J. Moody. And again, they won the minutes he was on the bench.

When he returned, Rob Kennedy mentioned on the broadcast that Hidalgo needed to be aware of A.J. Moody, who was on some kind of defensive heater in this one. It could have been the shoes.

A minute or so after tweeting that, I noticed that Tyrie James seemed to have the other half of these shoes, so perhaps they wear the same size shoes and decided to work together. Either way, I have questions.

Back in the game, Hidalgo scored to make the lead 8, then Tyrie James hit a 3 to start an 8-0 Windham run to tie the game.

It was somewhere in here that both teams locked in.

If someone grabbed a rebound, two players from the other team were trying to rip it away. If you got a breakaway layup, someone managed to catch you and turn it into a tough shot. If the ball hit the floor, someone was diving for it. Nothing was given. Everything was a battle. Everything was a dogfight. It was a lot of fun to watch courtside.

With 2:38 to go, Hidalgo drove the lane and forgot to heed Rob Kennedy's warning.

That's Jarod Richmond on color.

Then with 1:32 to play and SoPo up 1, Hidalgo picked up his 5th foul trying to steal the ball from Tyrie James. As Jarod said on the broadcast, you can't fault the hustle, but that's not the spot for it. James hit both free throws to give Windham the lead.

On SoPo's next possession, A.J. Moody drew another charge, because of course he did, to foul out Tom Maloji and then scored on the other end to make the lead 3.

Sidebar: The A.J. Moody backstory for this season is significant, with him losing his father to cancer at the start of the year, so for him to be the guy making the huge plays down the stretch is so fitting and such a great story.

Neither team could score in their next trips, leaving SoPo with one last chance to tie.

Creighty Dickson led the way with 16 & 7. Tyrie James had 12 and Moody had 9 points, 4 steals, and took 3 charges. SoPo got 19 & 11 from Darius Johnson.

At the very beginning of the year, all the way back in November, I started the coverage of the 2024-25 season with a podcast interview with Windham head coach Chad Pulkkinen.

We were all so young and so rested.

When you interview a coach for an hour on a podcast, you get to know them a tiny bit and as the season has progressed, I've run into Chad and his team a couple of times and gotten to know them a little more. They even dropped off a "Windham vs. Everyone" shirt to my seat on press row (and you know I love a t-shirt).

So I had to complete the circle and finish the season the way I started it: talking hoops with Chad Pulkkinen.

And that's a wrap.

Although we're not quite done. I've got a couple of podcasts lined up this week with some newly-minted State Champs and there's the whole business of Mr. and Miss Basketball, Gatorade POTY, and everything else.

But for now, get some rest. You've earned it.

I also just want to say that when I started doing this all those years ago, I would hide in the stands and then I would sit way up in the corner at the ACC or up in the hockey press box at the hockey rink so no one could kick me out and now I've got a dedicated spot on press row for a State Championship game. All that's left is for them to spell my name right.

ALSO

Thanks to everyone who followed the LIVE Stats. The response has been overwhelming. Having said that, I'm not sure this Caribou woman is impressed.

Finally, I would never not include an amazing buzzer-beater. This is my solemn vow to you.