Is Bapst Fixed?

Our Game of the Day got postponed into 2025, so let's pivot.

The John Bapst girls had a rough go of it last year. They missed the playoffs with, I believe, a 3-15 record.

But there's reason to be hopeful. In the Eastern Maine Sports preview, Bob Beatham mentioned senior Claire Gaetani as someone to watch. He was so convincing I had them on my list of teams to take in the Wins Draft in the "Missed the Playoffs" category.

A game and a half into the season, it wasn't looking great. They lost to Caribou, to the surprise of no one, and found themselves down 29-14 at halftime to Old Town.

And then something must have clicked.

Bapst went on a 25-6 run in the second half to shock the Coyotes. Gaetani scored 27 of Bapst's 39 points. Could this be a sign of things to come for the Crusaders? Or is it time to be worried about an Old Town teams that's suddenly 0-2 after leading by 11 and 14, respectively?

We have our first (to my knowledge) 1,000 point scorer of the year: Jace Bessey of Spruce Mountain.

Let's go to the video.

Bessey finished with 20. Cai Dougher added 19 and Spruce doubled up Hall-Dale.

Elsewhere:

Elijah Freeman had 25 as Maranacook beat Oak Hill...the Brunswick boys erased an eight-point deficit against Freeport...Mountain Valley's Ben Desalle dropped 23 on Lisbon...Silas Yeaton had 20 as Pine Tree beat Temple...Waynflete scored 29 in the 3rd quarter to put Sacopee Valley away...Lexi Morin added 4 steals to her 17 & 10 double-double as Brunswick beat Freeport.

If you missed it yesterday (wasn't fully uploaded and yadda yadda yadda).

Jay has an interesting take on the shot clock debate.

Apparently in the over 2 hours of podcasting, we managed to make some people mad. Go figure.

I'm not a big college football guy, but I'm in favor of this.

There's a bunch of interesting games today. There's a re-match of the AA championship game between Windham and Gorham. Jamier Rose and the Noble boys host Falmouth in what could be a A South Regional Final preview. The Bangor girls head to Oxford Hills. And Medomak Valley hosts Oceanside for a double-header (I'll be at that one, for sure.)

But the Stax Index likes the Mt. Ararat and GNG girls. If you squint you can see it.

Mt. Ararat is considered a contender in A South and opened with a demolishing of Greely, 61-15, but the score might be an indication that maybe Greely is having a down year? And GNG was the 3 seed last year and opened with a convincing win over Freeport.

It's early in the season and there's a ton of noise in Model. Falmouth hasn't even played a game! So, yeah, if it were me and I was in southern Maine, I'd go to Gorham/Windham or Noble/Falmouth (the Stax Index is lower on these because the Model has those both as double-digit games).

The Model's picks are after the jump.