Mt. Ararat Rallies

Let's start with the Game of the Day.

On January 21st, the Machias boys beat Calais by 1. So if you're Calais, you had to come into a rematch in the quarterfinals thinking you've got a better chance than a typical 7 seed. And boy, did they. They led most of the way in a game where no one led by more than 6 and there were 11 ties in regulation, the 11th coming at the buzzer on a bucket by Calais' Frank Miliano.

Calais hung on to win by 1 and complete the upset. Last year's C North 7 seed went all the way to the Gold Ball game. Does Calais have that in them?

Speaking of overtime, the defending class D champs from Bangor Christian won in overtime in a game where they did not have the lead for one second of regulation.

Bangor Christian boys never led until overtime. They still managed to ‘claw back’ a win.

The boys’ unlikely 52-48 victory followed a 33-21 win for the Bangor Christian girls earlier in the day.

Bangor Daily NewsMatt Junker

And Rajon Reed, who's been putting up highlight reel material all year, had another one.

At the Expo, Izzy Morelli had 21, including her 1,000th point as GNG handled Kennebunk easily.

They'll face Marshwood in the semifinals.

The Hawks' Isabelle Tice had the sort of shooting luck you have nightmares about. She missed her first 12 shots and I was starting to wonder if someone at Greely had a voodoo doll with her face on it, but like any good player who's shot won't go down, she found other ways to contribute. She was fantastic all over the floor. She had 8 steals and controlled the game. Eventually, she hit some shots and Marshwood was able to pull away in the 4th quarter. Renee St. Pierre led the Hawks with 12 off the bench.

Madison's Jacob Linkletter had himself a half.

Madison would go on to complete the upset.

Can I just say that for a data nerd like myself, it's been super fun having the live stats from all three venues. The Augusta site is posting shooting percentages and I'm scoreboard watching from Portland.

The Madawaska boys have been one of the nicer stories of the season, going 17-1 and punching their first ticket to the tournament in 14 years.

Last night, they beat Dexter to win their first quarterfinal game since 2006, back in the old Bangor Auditorium.

Eastern Maine Sports spoke to coach Shawn Pelletier after the game.

Madawaska has never won in the semifinals. Can they beat Calais and make their first-ever Regional Final?

The Model likes their chances.

Thanks to some bad injury luck, the Brunswick girls this year were over-qualified to be a 5 seed. The Model thought they should be the 4 seed--even with all the injuries--and with fewer injuries they could have potentially been a top 3 seed. They came into tournament, if not fully healthy, then healthier against a 4th seeded Freeport team with a M*A*S*H triage unit on their bench. You see, the Falcons limped into the tournament without 3 starters and both of their captains.

Even if you didn't know all that, it was apparent early in the game that this was not your normal 4/5 game. The defending champs raced out to an 11-4 lead and led 25-10 at halftime. It would have been considerably worse if not for Freeport's Emily Groves who blocked 10 Brunswick shots. The Dragons kept their title defense alive with a dominant win behind 16 points from Lexi Morin and 17 rebounds from Julianna Morin.

Which left the Expo with three clunkers of games and only a couple of 1/8 games left and a real risk of getting a full day of blowouts. But the Basketball Gods had other ideas.

Early in the season, A South looked like a Region of Death caliber bracket, but the Mt. Ararat girls separated themselves from the pack by winning their final 11 games, including a 13-point win on the road against the 8th seeded Westbrook Blue Blazes, a team that finished 3-8 over their last 11. Mt. Ararat was favored by 25 points, as they should have been. But the Basketball Gods wouldn't let us have 4 bad games in a row.

After Mt. Ararat had an early 3-2 lead, Westbrook ripped off a 15-2 run, breathing life into the Expo crowd for the first time all day. Westbrook was flying all over the place. The Expo was rocking. And the Mt. Ararat faithful were in shock.

Cali Pomerleau hit a 3 to stop the bleeding and the Eagles chipped away at the lead until Julianna Allen converted a traditional 3-point play in the final seconds of the half to cut the lead to 2. Then Jenna Jensen scored to give Mt. Ararat the lead and you could feel the upset slipping away. But no one told Westbrook. They erupted for a 20-4 run to build a 17-point lead.

Then with 2 minutes left in the third, Kennedy Lampert hit a 3. Then she scored off a Julianna Allen assist. Then Allen scored and at the end of the 3rd, the Westbrook lead was down to 8. Allen's 7th point of the 4th quarter gave Mt. Ararat their first lead since it was 3-2 and the Eagles held on for dear life down the stretch and escaped with a 51-50 win. They closed the game with a 24-6 run. Allen finished with 16 points and 3 blocked shots. Ava Bolden had 10 off the bench for Westbrook.

In the Portland nightcap, we had the Noble boys facing Marshwood in a re-scheduled game from Saturday.

This one turned into a rock fight in the 2nd quarter when each team made one (1) basket in a 3-2 quarter. It was rough.

Noble woke up in the 3rd quarter as Bryce Guitard had 9 points in the quarter and Jamier Rose had 4 assists. The Knights advanced to the semifinals behind 17 from Guitard and a 12/6r/8a/5s line from Jamier Rose with a couple of highlight reel plays, just for fun.

If you haven't seen Rose in person yet, it's worth the trip to the Expo.

In other action...

The Schenck girls used a balanced attack to outlast Shead...The Mattanawcook girls got 23 & 10 from Addison Cyr and 23 from Megan House to blowout Machias...The Dexter girls held Fort Kent to 18 to pull off a 3/6 upset...The Schenck boys got 18 & 13 from Owen Wyman and beat Southern Aroostook by 10...The Southern Aroostook girls played their first ever game at the Cross Insurance Center in their road uniforms and fell to Bangor Christian...Allie Dunning's 18 led Forest Hills over Vinalhaven...Charlie Apodaca's 23 got St. Dom's past Temple...Islesboro's Alma Bewsher's 21 wasn't enough to give them their first ever tourney win. They fell to Chantal Mbonimpa and Pine Tree....Monmouth beat Madison in a slugfest to keep their title defense alive...Hall-Dale put up a 28-point first quarter and crushed Richmond...Reagan Lockaby's 23 led Mount Abram over Dirigo.

The B South semifinals are today at the Expo and they should be awesome. Three of the 4 games have a Stax Index over 85 and the 4th is a rivalry game between Medomak and Lincoln Academy.

But the Game of the Day is the Biddeford and Spruce Mountain girls.

Biddeford is 5th in the Power Rankings and the 4 seed, which makes them the strongest 4 seed I can remember, in any class. And they're also incredibly young. If they don't win the region this year, they'll be a contender in the new class A for the next couple of years.

Spruce Mountain is back in the semifinals after surviving an overtime thriller against Lincoln Academy, an impressive bit of composure for a young team.

The consensus seems to be that Biddeford is a strong favorite, but the Model thinks this is more or less a toss-up. This should be an awesome game.

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