Bapst Gets in the Win Column

There was a scary situation last night in the Dirigo/Bapst football game. With 4:07 left in the third quarter of a 12-6 game, Dirigo's kick returner, Gunnar Knowlton, took a legal hit and his head hit the ground as he landed. In the WHOU feed, you could clearly see him grab his head. Play stopped for 30 minutes while an ambulance brought a board. With a situation like this, you obviously want to operate with an abundance of caution and you don't want to make any assumptions. Having said that, you could see him move his leg on the broadcast, which is always the first thing you look for in these situations when you're watching on TV.

Not knowing how serious the injury is, I didn't clip out the play in question, for obvious reasons.

Andrew Hart of Maine High School Football reached Dirigo coach Joshua Newhall after the game.

[Knowlton] suffered what appeared to be a neck injury, was responsive and moving when he left but scary situation all around.

The thoughts of the state are with the Dirigo community and Bradeen's family.

Bapst won 18-6 to pick up their first victory of the season. Thomas Curtis accounted for all three scores for Bapst.

In the other game, Winthrop made short work of Madison on Homecoming with an emphatic 38-8 victory.

Winthrop football rebounds, rumbles past Madison

The Ramblers bounce back from last week’s loss at Freeport with an emphatic homecoming win over the Bulldogs.

Centralmaine.comMike MandellStaff Writer

In the soccer Game of the Day the Camden girls certainly made the statement that they are really, really good with a 10-1 rout of Brunswick. The win vaults them up to 6th in the Power Rankings, which are starting to filter the Harvest teams out of the top 10 (more games = more Power Ranking points).

Elsewhere

Giselle Jabar scored twice in Yarmouth's win over Fryeburg...Ava Bolden had both of Westbrook's goals against Falmouth...Mt. Abram's Evelyn Pepin had a hat trick...Sophia Poulin's game winner lifted Leavitt over Morse...Freshman Haley Berube scored thrice and Maranacook routed Telstar...Hall-Dale got three goals from Clare Sturtevant in a win over Oak Hill...Joao de Melo's first half goal held up in Fryeburg's win over Yarmouth...Jacob Gibbs' late goal bought Leavitt a tie against Morse...Nathan Dimandja found the back of the net in overtime against Mt. Blue to keep Lewiston unbeaten...Belfast's Stella McCarthy scored twice in a shutout of Medomak...Lauren Burnham scored four times in Monmouth's win over Wiscasset...Mae Dubois' hat trick led Skow to a win over Cony...Spruce got 3 Lexus Hebert goals in a shutout of Lisbon...Cheverus stretched their unbeaten streak to 59 games with a Avery Tinker goal after time expired.

If your business is looking to reach Mainers who are active in high school sports, website traffic is up 550% over the first 2 weeks of the season, year-over-year. 550%!!!

The Overreactions podcasts are up 300%.

Advertising with Maine Basketball Rankings is an amazing value.

As you might imagine, I spend a decent amount of time thinking about how to best do whatever it is I'm doing here--a newsletter and rankings and a podcast and standing on the sidelines shooting video with my phone. There's no best way to do it, because no one really knows what works, exactly. Even within this niche ecosystem of Maine high school sports, what works for me doesn't work for Michael Hoffer and vice-versa.

Sometimes, it feels like we are all circling the same audience, hoping we will garner enough attention to pay our staffs, our writers, and — if we’re very lucky — ourselves. There is no singular formula that works. The only thing we know to be true is that to sustain any audience requires frequent and prolific output, of consistently excellent quality that is unique and voice-driven. People are not necessarily subscribing to the writing independent journalists publish. They are subscribing to the person doing that writing or broadcasting or podcasting. They are investing in a brand.

This rings true. What's worked best for me is the stuff that's brand-centric. If you're thinking of doing independent journalism of whatever kind, it's worth keeping in mind.

The whole thing is worth reading. It is long.

News Worthy — THE BITTER SOUTHERNER

One of the most common refrains in journalism is that it is dying.

THE BITTER SOUTHERNER

Important Advancements in Science

You would think that after all the exploration of the last 100 years that there wouldn't be any new surprises left on Earth. Maybe in the ocean, where the deepest depths contain the stuff of horror movies, but on the surface? Clearly we'd discovered all of, say, the types of cat. But, nope.

And where did they find this new type of cat? Deep in the jungles of Bolivia? No, it was in some dude's house. A family had adopted a cat they found and it wasn't acclimating well to domestication, so they brought it to a wildlife sanctuary and viola!

New cat!

Here's a fun story on how the Diamondbacks found a hitch in Andy Pettitte's delivery that helped swing a World Series.

The early word on the street is Lawrence just might be the team to beat in B North. Cony's BL Lippert said as much on the podcast and a bunch of people have insisted they are in my Facebook comments.

They'll head to Skowhegan today to take on the River Hawks. The Bulldogs are 2-0 on the year. They destroyed Gorham in Week 1 and handled a feisty Fryeburg team in Week 2.

As for Skowhegan, they beat Mount Blue and then fell to Cony last week in a thriller.

The Tourney Odds of B North paint a picture of a region where a lot can change. Cony has the inside track on the 1 seed, but 73% is far from a sure thing. Lawrence and Skowhegan are neck-and-neck for the 2 seed and the winner obviously puts themselves in a great position for one of those top 2 spots and a bye.

Skowhegan's the favorite today because, well, look at that SOS. Gorham isn't worth anything and Fryeburg isn't worth much at 0-2. The Cony result is doing a lot of work here. If you think Lawrence should be the favorite here, I won't argue with you. In fact, I think you're probably right.

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