The Gold Ball Games Are Here

After the Saturday Regional Finals, I kind of just drove home and promptly slept for 13 hours. Such is the post-Regional collapse.

Let's do a quick thing on the AA Regional Finals.

The Oxford Hills girls entered the tournament as the #1 overall team in the Power Rankings, but if you had taken away the seeds, you'd think Cheverus was the better team. They held Oxford Hills to 28% from the floor and 19% from 3 and controlled a game that wasn't really as close as the score indicated. Kylie Lamson led Cheverus with 16. Ella Pelletier had 17. And Cheverus kept their title defense alive by winning ugly in a game with 47 turnovers and a Misery Rating of 69.

In the other Regional, South Portland came out hot. Annie Whitmore hit a 3 from the wing. Then Caleigh Corcoran hit a 3 from the wing. Then Mya Lawrence hit a 3 from the wing. Then Whitmore hit another 3 from the wing. And another. Lawrence hit another. At one point in this game they were shooting 70% from deep. The halftime message in the Gorham locker room was probably something along the lines of "for the love of god, will someone play defense inside the red circle?"

South Portland finished 8/13 from distance (62%) and coasted to a win. Whitmore led the way with 18 and 6 assists.

With Oxford Hills losing, the presumptive Mr. Basketball (Jamier Rose) and the presumptive Miss Basketball (Ella Pelletier) both missed the State Game, which last happened in the Davies/Gruber year.

But it also means that the #1 team in the boys and girls Power Rankings entering the playoffs lost before the State Game, which is a first.

Speaking of Mr. and Miss Basketball, the finalists are in.

I picked 4 of these correctly. For Mr. Basketball, I had Rose, Lash, and Leo McNabb. For Miss Basketball, I had Pelletier, Deprey, and take your pick from 5 different people. One was Morin, but I won't count that. Morin, by the way, is the first Brunswick girl to be named a finalist. Rose is probably the first finalist from Noble (I should have looked that up). Deprey is believed to be the first finalist for the Caribou girls. And the other schools have all had a winner before (Oxford Hills: Julia Colby, 2020), (TA: Will Davies, 2023), (Medomak Valley: Josh Nash, 1995).

They'll announce the winners at the banquet during McDonald's weekend.

The defending champs from Windham have had a solid title defense so far this year, minus a hiccup mid-season that I incorrectly attributed to a Creighty Dickson injury (it was a Tyrie James injury, which would also be a lot to overcome).

Windham used a run in the second quarter to take the lead, highlighted by a 3 at the buzzer by AJ Moody. They stretched the lead out to 10 in the third before Edward Little used a little razzle-dazzle to stage a comeback.

They actually did this twice. It was awesome.

Edward Little got it down to 4 late, which is when Windham usually closes things out at the line. Only this time, not so much. In a stretch where Windham went 2/8 from the line, Edward Little was only able to take 1 point of the Eagles' lead. Windham held on behind 16 points from Colin Janvrin off the bench. The Maiwens combined for 33 points.

In the finale, South Portland used a 25-6 run to put away a feisty Bonny Eagle team and then took the air out of the ball, to bleed away the 4th quarter. Manny Hidalgo had 22 points for SoPo.

In Augusta...

The Valley girls blew out St. Dom's behind 18 & 9 from Liana Hartwell and 16 & 11 from Rylee Clark...The St. Dom's boys returned the favor, blowing out the Valley boys and holding Harry Louis scoreless. Jonathan Tangilamesu led St. Dom's with 13 points, 13 boards, and 2 steals...The Hall-Dale girls held Madison to 19% from the floor and got a double-double from Sierra Gibbons...Mt. Abram eliminated the defending champs behind 28 & 8 from Bryce Wilcox and 20 from Killian Pillsbury. Bingham Abbott had 23 & 11 in the losing effort.

In Bangor...

The Central Aroostook girls closed on a 14-4 run to stun Schenck. Lilly Burtt led the way with 12 & 7...The Schenck boys used a big 3rd quarter to put away Katahdin. Owen Wyman had 16.

Scoreboard watching in Portland, I kept looking at the Mattanawcook/Penobscot Valley score and doing a double-take. The Howlers have been absolutely dominant during the tournament--the broke the record for 3s in a regional tournament in the semis--so to see them losing was a bit of a surprise. To see them down 7 was a shock. But they figured it out, holding the Lynx to 8 points in each of the final 3 quarters to survive and advance. They won by 5. And then I looked at the Model's spread. They were favored by 3. So they even covered. Despite only shooting 3/19 from deep.

You've probably heard what happened in the nightcap.

Kooper McCarthy had 28 in the win, but was overshadowed by Pelletier's 43.

I'm sorry. That's 8th grader Quinn Pelletier going off for 43 points (and 10 rebounds) in a Regional Final.

You can vote for Quinn Pelletier for high school athlete of the week, even if he isn't actually in high school yet.

And as of last night, he's winning!

Vote: Who should be High School on SI National Boys Athlete of the Week? (2/24/2025)

Each week during the high school sports season, High School on SI will gather the best performances across the country with the help of fans, readers and staff.

Sports IllustratedBob Lundeberg

Prior to the tourney, Jay Baines joined me to do my annual "Pick a Cinderella" exercise. Turns out it works much better as content with 2 people instead of one.

The obvious move, then, is for Jay to come back and go over how we did. And since he was mostly in Bangor and I was only in Portland, it was helpful in doubling the perspective/games seen.

We also made predictions for the State Games. Enjoy!

You can watch the video. Or, let's say you have a 300-mile drive this weekend (just to pick a number for no reason), you can listen to it on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

The Tourney Guide Gold Ball Edition is now available with updated stats for the 20 teams still left standing.

Tourney Guide

All the data

Maine Basketball RankingsLucas McNelly

Thanks to the collaboration between yours truly and the MPA (what a time to be alive), I've put together individual tourney stats for every player who played in a game we have stats for (I think we missed a couple, for reasons).

Check it out!

Tourney Stats

Every player. Every game.

Maine Basketball RankingsLucas McNelly

Last year, we had replay available to us for end-of-game buzzer-beaters, but those are very rare, so it never came up. Which means that this year, when it was available for end-of-quarter buzzer-beaters, it quadrupled our chances.

And as luck would have it, we got to use it.

Matt Junker has a nice write-up in the BDN.

Maine high school basketball tournament sees ‘historic’ use of instant replay

The guidelines adopted in 2023 were used in two key tournament games over the last week, proving the efficacy of the process.

Bangor Daily NewsMatt Junker

Ace Flagg won another chip.

3 state championships in 3 different states is a pretty wild accomplishment. That might be a first?

There's not a lot of choices, but they're good choices.

We've got the A Gold Ball games in Augusta.

The Falmouth boys--with 12 seniors--are back in the Title Game after winning an absolute classic over Noble. They've been led by Davis Mann, who shot 51.1% from the floor in the A South Region.

Messo is a little younger. They've only got 5 seniors. They're led by Ty Bernier, who is shooting at even 50% from the floor.

Falmouth's tourney run has vaulted them to #1 overall in the Power Rankings, so they're going to be the favorite here.

Maine Public will have the streaming/TV rights for these games.