Belfast snaps a losing streak

A losing streak can be demoralizing and there's a special level to it in football where you've only got 8 games a year. In basketball, with 18, it's easier to squeak out a win, although the Wiscasset girls recently went 8 years in-between wins, but with football, it's easier for a losing streak to turn into a multi-year saga. Much like Odysseus, a short trip can quickly spiral into an albatross.

Enter the Belfast football team. They'd lost 20 straight entering tonight's game against Brewer, but in three of their final 5 last year, they'd been within two scores.

The Model actually had them favored in this one at home, but it took them an extra period to get it done.

Noah Parenteau scored in the first OT for Belfast and they converted to make it 28-20. Brewer answered with a Carter Smith score, but the Lions held up on the 2-point try to snap that 20-game losing streak.

They'll travel to Oak Hill next week to try and put together a winning streak.

In Fryeburg, Cony was on the ropes late. With Parker Morin gone, the defending B North champs have a new quarterback this year and there's nothing like a late game test in a real game to see what they've got under center.

Well, Drew Lindquist threw a strike to Oliver Odom with 2.9 seconds left to finish the rally and lift Cony to a come-from-behind win over Fryeburg. The Rams might be ok.

I went to Gardiner/Nokomis, which on paper had the look of a classic. It was ugly, full of penalties, but the highlight came at the end of the first half.

Gardiner led by 2 scores and I remarked to the Lilly, the Varsity Maine photographer, that with 2 minutes left, the Warriors desperately just needed to get to halftime and regroup. Instead, Gardiner got a stop and got the ball back, Isaac Madore connected with Chase McGrane for the second time to make it 20-0 with 22.4 seconds left. Surely, now Nokomis would just take it to halftime and I was so sure of it, I posted it as the halftime score.

Well, they decided to run a play. Evan Bullock blew it up and sophomore Connor Berard scooped it up and rumbled to the end zone and effectively put the game out of reach.

Obviously, that's who I wanted to talk to after the game.

The Stax Index said the game to go to was in Wells and it wasn't wrong. The Warriors got two long touchdowns from Brady Godin and led 14-7 in the final minutes against Winslow. But Winslow was able to convert on 4th and goal in the final minute to pull within 1 and despite kicking a PAT on their first score, they opted to go for the win on the road. Wells stopped them on the conversion to seal the win.

Elsewhere

Lucas Klehn rushed for 2 TDs in Bonny Eagle's win over SoPo....Logan Stout rushed for 3 TDs as Edward Little blew out Deering...Landon Marquis tossed 4 scores as Leavitt scored 25 unanswered to put away Medomak...Caden Wells took a blocked punt 35 yards to the house to give Morse a win over Mountain Valley...Toby Oufiero had 3 total TDs in Oxford Hills' win over Windham...Austin Lancaster threw 3 scores and had a game-sealing pick in the end zone as Skowhegan survived Mount Blue...TA scored 48 first half points to crush Scarborough...Kyle Normand's 2 goals led Bonny Eagle over Biddeford...Rowen Reed had a goal and assist as Gorham shut out SoPo...Luke Goucher's overtime goal gave Monmouth a win over Hall-Dale...Mia Mariello scored 4 goals in Biddeford's 2OT win over Sanford in field hockey...Helen Zimmerman's overtime goal gave Greely a win over York.

The NY Times has a nice interview with Pablo Torre as he continues his victory lap from his coverage of the Kawhi Leonard saga and cap circumvention with the Clippers.

The whole thing is fascinating on several levels, including the importance of independent journalism, especially in this hellscape of a society we're being forced to live in where the ultra-rich essentially get to do whatever they want, seemingly without any consequences. Elon Musk can spend obscene amounts of money in violation of election laws and the only negative thing that happens is he gets embarrassed by Chess.com (that's a real thing that happened).

But Torre makes the point that the NBA's punishment of Ballmer suggests that thanks to independent journalism, the good guys can actually win.

That maybe a collection of documentary evidence and human sources who are brave enough to talk to a journalist, and months of research that have been vetted legally and otherwise, can combine to create something like consequences at a time at which those extraordinarily wealthy people seem to be able to avoid them.

I think that we have the ability to do something that the rest of our culture is yearning for, which is make people who are too rich to care about anything resembling the public interest worry that maybe they need to tell us the truth.

We head to the County, where Presque Isle might be the last County team to start their season. They'll host an Orono team that went 13-0-1 last year and is hoping to finish better than last year's double-overtime loss in the Gold Ball game to Hall-Dale.

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