Let's Go!
The Tourney is finally here.
Wednesday's prelims were mostly chalk with a couple of slight 8/9 upsets.
In C North boys, the Mount View Mustangs picked right up where they left off last year, handling Fort Fairfield rather easily, 64-43. Stuart Knowlton had 21 to lead the way, Wyatt Bennett added 19, and that sound you hear is a collective groan from the coaches seeded 1 through 7. Does Mount View have another run in them?
The other upset came in B North boys (because of course it did). Belfast continued their remarkable turnaround by beating Houlton 67-60 behind 25 points, 16 rebounds, and 6 blocked shots from Trevin Ripley. The Belfast bus probably just floated the 2 and a half hours home.
The Lions will get their toughest test with the top seeded-Caribou on Saturday.
It was chalk, but Portland coach Joe Russo picked up his 500th victory in a quarterfinal win over Oxford Hills.
Steve CraigPortland Press Herald
Elsewhere:
Add Old Town's Emmitt Byther to the 1,000 point club...Liam Tiernan had 21 in Marshwood's win over Biddeford...Windham kicked off their title defense with a rout of Bangor. Creighty Dickson led with 23...Adam Fitzgerald led a Scarborough second half rally to beat Deering. He scored 17...Bonny Eagle beat Sanford in overtime. The Scots had 5 players score between 9 and 13 points in a balanced attack...Winslow used a big third quarter to beat Maranacook, despite leading scorer Braden Rodrigue being held to 8 points...JJ Carlo's 25 wasn't enough to give Waynflete an upset over Winthrop. Instead the Ramblers will take that school bus to Augusta...Dirigo needed a big game from Nathaniel Wainwright to take down OOB in overtime. He had 26, including 6 of their 8 in the extra period...Ricardo Louis had 14 and 13 to help Temple fend off 27 points from Greenville's Liam Mason...Scarborough rallied down 8 to beat TA in the AA South 4/5 game. Ellie Rumelhart led the way with 17...Caitlyn McCoy had 16 and Bella Smith added 15 in Leavitt's win over Yarmouth.
And now it's Tourney Time!
We kick off today at 4pm with A North girls, B North, and B South boys.
And new this year, assuming there's no issues (knock on wood), we will have LIVE stats from all FOUR venues, thanks to a collaboration with the MPA!
That's right. Augusta. Bangor. The Expo. The Hockey Rink. All live.
Your boss won't let you stream? Some dumb relative thought it would be romantic to have a wedding on Valentine's Day weekend? You just got a text message that your rival is on the ropes? We got you.
I've been doing this for years and then last year, the MPA jumped on-board and covered Augusta, which worked well. So now we're expanding it to cover all the games (knock on wood).
Also I have typed in a lot of rosters over the last couple of days. My apologies in advance if I spelled your name wrong.
The LIVE stats are free and available for all.
The Tourney Guides are all done.
Lucas McNelly
They're available to download for any paid subscriber.
If you want to just buy a region of the Tourney Guide or for some reason don't want to subscribe, you can do that at Gumroad.
If you've got a long drive to a tourney site, can I suggest the "Let's Pick a Cinderlla!" episode of the podcast where Jay Baines and I go through all 20 Regions–boys and girls–and try to figure out who might win the region if the favorite falters.
It's fun stuff!
It's the 50th anniversary of the girls tournament.
Drew BonifantPortland Press Herald
If you can't make it to a tourney site, there's the annual confusion of where the game's will be streamed.
The quarterfinals will stream on NFHS (ugh), so if you haven't signed up yet, here's an affiliate link you can use.
And then we switch to WHOU and Maine Public will have the Gold Ball games again.
The Gold Ball Odds are updated to include the prelim games.
The Ringer has a nice piece about Cooper's projection as the number 1 overall pick and NOT about the chances he can bring Nokomis another Gold Ball.
It's just wild to think that we should be watching his senior season at Nokomis right now.
Get your Seattle Storm swag now.
Welcome to the Emerald City, Mackenzie Holmes! ⛈️
— Seattle Storm (@seattlestorm) February 13, 2025
📰 https://t.co/0xWpKP5ipL pic.twitter.com/UbupcLWVKE
In many ways, Aaron Rodgers was the perfect Jet.
This is a tremendous self-own tbh pic.twitter.com/ybTcDoLXBg
— Bleacher Nation Bears (@BN_Bears) February 13, 2025
The Hermon girls did not have a great middle to their season, losing 7 of 9, but rallied down the stretch to win their final 5, including a big win over Old Town that got them a home prelim. They then beat Belfast in the prelim to get to the quarterfinals.
There they'll take on a very young Erskine team that faltered a little down the stretch, losing two of their last 4, including to a Mt. View team that I'm circling as my Cinderella pick in C North.
Can the Eagles handle the pressure of the spotlight or will Hermon stay hot?
The Model's picks for the rest of today's games are after the jump.