RIP My Mailbox
Hermon upsets Ellsworth!
We'll do this as quickly as possible, because I've gotta go find my mailbox after a plow truck took it out last night.
Up North, in the Game of the Day, Southern Aroostook used a big third quarter to stretch a 4-point lead out to 15 and sweep the season series against Hodgdon.
That'll effectively end the Hawks' quest for the 1 seed in C North. They've also still got some work to do to lock up a bye.
The big story last night was the Hermon boys knocking off Ellsworth.
Chris Popper
Hermon entered this game with a 1% chance of getting a bye in the ultra-competitive B North. The win doesn't help that as much as you'd think--it only improves to 4%. What it does is improve their standing as the 6 seed (from 60% to 73%) and takes away a bunch of scenarios where they could fall to 8-10. They're now pretty solidly in the 6, with a shot at the 5 if they can run the table.
Ellsworth finds their shot at the 1 seed evaporating. That's down from 17% to 3%.
This could be a wild bracket come tourney week.
Elsewhere...
Inyas Janoch's 33 wasn't enough for Ashland as they lost to Madawaska...Mazie Peach had 27 & 17 in Dexter's win over Central...The Stearns girls beat Lee Academy in overtime...Zach McLaughlin had 26 in Hampden's win over Brewer.
Thomas and Cole are back with a new podcast to talk about Deering's big upset, the Miss Basketball race, and more.
It's available wherever you podcast.
At first, I thought MaxPreps had made a mistake (again).
But, no. They're really in California as part of a pretty unique tournament.
If you're not following WHOU on Twitter (and very few people are), you should.
They've been posting nice highlight packages of some of the games they cover. They also do this on Facebook, I'm pretty sure.
More highlights from the county last night! Houlton hosted @CHSGoVikings on their senior night! Caribou picked up a 58-32 win over the Shires! #mesports pic.twitter.com/6whqFI9chN
— WHOU.live (@WHOU_Live) January 24, 2024
The Bangor Daily News has more on the petition by the Falmouth football team to have their coach replaced.
I'm no expert on football safety, but this doesn't look great.
Prior to the 2023 football season, more than 40 percent of the Navigators’ players left the team, and only 29 players finished the 2023 season, according to the petition. Additionally, one third of the roster suffered a fracture or concussion during the 2023 season — a rate six times higher than the national average for high school football players, as reported by the Journal of Pediatrics in 2020.
Sam Canfield
Let's head down to the B South girls, where Wells and York will square off.
First, the lay of the land.
Wells, led by the Maxon sisters, currently sits in 3rd place, just a tiny bit above Lake Region. They can't get to the 2, and there's very little chance of them not getting a bye, so they'll fall somewhere between 3 and 6. Obviously, they want to stay at 3 and not be on Oceanside's side of the bracket and avoid a potential 4/5 game with Lake Region or Spruce Mountain, who's just lurking.
York currently sits 6th, but that 6-8 is messy. York would need to run the table and get a ton of help to get to 5 (Spruce has 2 more games left and they're all worth points), so their big concern is holding on to that final bye at 6. Besides this, they've got Yarmouth and Biddeford left on their schedule. I think they need 2 out of those 3 to get it.
That quest starts tonight.
The rest of the Model's picks for today's games are after the jump.