One Hundred and Fifteen Points

Just one day after Mattanawcook beat Lee Academy 113-61, we have this.

And you thought people were mad yesterday.

First, I just want to say that I appreciate that we're doing this on the very next day. It's a natural transition for someone who write a daily newsletter and much cleaner than if it were to happen next week.

These things never come out of thin air. North Haven just lost to Valley 88-18, which was the second-most points they'd scored this year.

It's tough, because according to the enrollment numbers, North Haven has 15 kids. Total. Take 15 random kids at your school and see what sort of boys basketball team you end up with. Say 8 of the 15 are boys, there's your team. If you're an able-bodied person who can run up and down the court a couple times, you're on the team. It's a miracle they even have a team. Maybe you get lucky and 4 or 5 kids really like basketball. Maybe it's only 2. It might be telling that Ezra Davisson scored 12 of North Haven's 13 points. Either way, it's an awfully thin margin for error. Add to that you're on an island, so you can't exactly talk your friend the next town over into transferring. So it's great that they're managing to field a team.

I talked to Buckfield coach Jon Cadman a little bit over DMs and it's a tough position to be in. He went deep into his bench early and often. The bench played 3/4 of the game. But Buckfield has got 150 kids, so it's not hard to imagine that their bottom 5 players could easily be better than the starters of a school of 15. You could stall and do performative things that are glorified stall tactics, but then you're telling your JV kids that can't play hard in their rare varsity minutes. They had 8 players score at least 9 points, which is really something.

On the flip side, I've been in this situation myself. I went to a super small school and we had a year we were blown out every game (not this bad) and it sucked, but if an opponent had just burned clock to save our feelings I would have been furious. If we lose by 60, we lose by 60. Maybe in a year or two, we'll beat you. And we did.

Just play basketball.

It's kind of tricky to get to a game on a Tuesday with my schedule, so I opted for the close option, which was fun because I got to bring my son along.

By the time we recorded this, he had already hit the concessions hard during his cousin's JV game and you can see the pizza smeared across his face.

He's cute, but he needs to work on his Model. You can't have people favored by 80. This isn't Class D.

After losing their opener to Erskine, Leavitt had quietly won 6 straight, albeit against a pretty soft schedule. How soft? Only 1 of those 6 wins was against a team in the top 90 (a 3-point win over #37 Poland).

Medomak led early, then Leavitt got hot from 3 and took the lead at 17-14 and Medomak coach Lindsay Vinal took her first timeout. I'm not sure what she said, but it worked. The Panthers ripped off an 18-1 run that ended when Caitlyn McCoy beat the halftime buzzer with a three from the corner. It was Leavitt's 5th corner 3 of the half, which is notable because they only made 5 field goals in the half. So, yeah, all their points in the half came on corner 3's and free throws. Analytics!

Obviously, I tweeted that at the half.

So of course their first bucket of the second half was a layup.

The second half was pretty uneventful. Medomak would put together a couple baskets in a row and Leavitt would hit a corner 3. McCoy beat the 3rd quarter buzzer with a deep 3, but the lead generally stayed in double digits.

I will say that for a Tuesday girls game an hour and a half away, the Leavitt crowd was rather large and engaged and not in a toxic way. Kind of exactly the sort of crowd you hope for.

In the end, Medomak won by 17--far short of Rhys' prediction of 80, but right in line with the Model's prediction of 17.1. There was a foul that could have been called with a second left that might have meant a lot to some shady characters in Friendship, but the refs let it slide.

As for the Leavitt shot diet, it was 3's and a layup (ignore the mid-range misses).

A number with a circle around it is a make. A number by itself is a miss by that player.

Caitlyn McCoy finished with 21. She was 7/12 from deep. Kytana Williamson led Medomak with 24 points, 6 rebounds, and 5 steals. Chloe Fox added a double-double.

But I should have gone to the Game of the Day.

South Portland dealt Windham their first loss of the season.

Manny Hidalgo's floater with 3 seconds left was the difference in a game that, by all accounts, was a thriller.

Steve Craig was there for Varsity Maine, doing the Lord's work.

South Portland hands defending champ Windham first loss in boys basketball

Manny Hidalgo scores the winning basket with four seconds to play in battle of top-ranked Class AA teams.

Press HeraldSteve CraigPortland Press Herald

Hidalgo had 25. Creighty Dickson led Windham with 22.

Here's Bangor forcing OT against Portland at the Expo.

Portland would prevail in the end behind 21 from Lucas LeGage.

Elsewhere:

The GNG girls easily covered a 21-point spread against Greely in the Instagram Game of the Week (LOL)...Brody Taylor's 19 led Bonny Eagle against Massabesic...Nolan Ames had 25 in Camden's win over Gardiner...Cape got 24 from Eli Smith and 20 from Tim Fredericks to beat Waynflete...Pete Vicneire hit 5 3's and tallied 20 points in Carrabec's win over Rangeley...Evan Legassey's 21 and Tavian Lauture's 19 & 10 helped Deering beat Sanford...Blaine Nadeau had 21 as Forest Hills beat Pine Tree...Fryeburg rallied to beat Freeport behind 23 from Bojan Bundovski...Theo Pow dropped 31 on Biddeford...Gabe Lash's 20 led 10 different Panthers scoring in Medomak's win over Leavitt...Brendan Shaw drilled 6 3's and scored 20 points, but it wasn't enough as Oceanside beat Brunswick in overtime...OOB's Brady Plante dropped 31 on Traip...Silas Nielsen's 19 points, 10 boards, and 5 blocks paced Sacopee Valley past NYA...Carter Blanche had 29 in Scarborough's win over Falmouth...Taylor Varney scored 19 points and handed out 10 dimes in St. Dom's win over Lisbon...TA's Wyatt Benoit had 26 against Edward Little...Harry Louis (27) and Fisher Tewksbury (23) ran roughshod over Temple...Braden Rodrigue gave Winslow 25 against Erskine...York needed most of Reece MacDonald's 21 to survive Lake Region...Portland tried to rally behind Baleria Yugu's 27 points, but fell short in Bangor...Natalia Silva's 25 led Biddeford to a win over Kennebunk...Forest Hills' Allie Dunning led the way with 24, outscoring Pine Tree by herself...Julianna Allen had 25 as Mt. Ararat led Deering 43-3 at the half...Arianna Bradeen had 22 as Mt. View cruised by Morse...NYA's Ella Giguere out-scored Sacoppee Valley 26-23...Ella Pelletier went off for 37 and Oxford Hills needed all of it to survive a feisty Lewiston...Aleiana Booker's layup with 5 seconds left gave Traip a win over OOB...Nya Avery's 14 & 10 helped York beat Lake Region.

Cooper, good god.

Look, I'm not going to lie to you and tell you this is a good game. This isn't an Instagram account with sketchy ethics.

This is probably a blowout.

Caribou is the highest scoring team in the state so far, filling it up at 77.6 points a game. They're also 5th in differential at +235. If you want to poke a hole in them, they've played a really soft schedule so far and their %Perfect against the Top 25 is a mediocre 9.89%. That's bad.

But this is a rivalry game with PI and anything can happen.

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