Don't Forget to Vote (for the Preseason Poll)
And in the real election, obviously
In Saturday's Game of the Day, the Bapst girls held off Hermon, setting up a Regional Final against Presque Isle. I wrote in Saturday's newsletter that the Model thought Presque Isle was the best team in the region and it still thinks that after their 4-0 win over Cony.
They are, however, not the favorites overall. That would be Cape Elizabeth in the south, but they're only 30.8% to win the whole thing, so it really is anyone's Gold Ball to win.
In the volleyball states, we had 2 3-0 matches and then one classic.
While I wasn't looking, Scarborough worked their way to the top spot in the Power Rankings and with a dominant win over top seed Cheverus, they'd extended their lead in the rankings, but it was going to take more than a spreadsheet to dethrone the 3-time defending champs from Gorham and their quest for a 4-peat. Scarborough took the first set, but Gorham took the next two. Scarborough forced a decisive 5th, but in the end, Gorham prevailed.
Michael Hoffer was there.
Michael Hoffer
The Model went 26-8 in the volleyball playoffs.
Elsewhere
Shyla McVeigh broke a scoreless tie as TA upset Biddeford...Mt. Ararat field hockey scored their 2 goals 26 seconds apart to stay unbeaten and beat Messo...Cheverus, who really does seem to be living on a prayer this season, got a penalty corner from Gracie Cooper 55 seconds into overtime to extend their unbeaten streak to 70 games...Vivienne Corriveau scored 5 times in Yarmouth's win over Lake Region...Lydia Porter's lifted Freeport over Greely in penalties...Leavitt scored 3 second half goals to overcome Gardiner...Annie Nyce scored 4 goals in Nokomis' win over Old Town...Emelia Michaud's goal was the difference in OOB's 1-0 win over Telstar...Lilah Pernal had 4 goals and an assist in Yarmouth's win over Greely...Lucas Hayner, Tate MacVane and Luke Brown each had 2 goals as Yarmouth blew out Freeport...Is there a Yarmouth team that isn't scoring at an epic rate this fall?...Monmouth scored 9 goals in a semifinal win over Woodland.
In this week's Overreactions podcast, Bob Beatham, Jr. joined me for the weekly tour around the state. Few people see as many games as Bob. It seems that whenever there's a big game, Bob's there, regardless of how far a drive it is.
We go over the quarterfinal results in Class B and D, the razor-tight Crabtree finish between South Portland and Noble for the final spot in A South (and should we be counting these New Hampshire games?), the looming chaos that is the Class C tourney, the strangely chalky B South quarters, the impending Stearns/OOB rematch, and more!
On this Election Day, don't forget to cast a vote in the most important contest of them all: the preseason poll!
It should be easier to figure out this time around. Do as many (or as few) regions as you'd like. Put the teams in the order you think they'll finish the regular season. Simple as that!
We'll reveal the results on a podcast just before the start of the season.
Lucas McNelly
I've been working on this for a LONG time.
A couple of years ago, back when I was still anonymous on here, we raised money for an independent film called Maine Noir: the story of a mother and daughter who find money hidden in the walls of the house they inherit and – SPOILER – people come looking for it.
Maine Noir (which I wrote, directed, and produced) is a lean, low-budget film that harkens back to the early noir films of the 40's and 50's like Detour, The Hitch-Hiker, and Woman on the Run. After a ton of stops and starts and delays we shot the film in 14 days (on time and under budget!) in Waldoboro in a house we borrowed from a non-profit that held off on their renovations so we could film.
Since then I've been editing it in-between newsletters and games and day jobs to pay the mortgage. And now we're raising funds to finish the film.
We launched a $10K campaign on Kickstarter Monday to pay for the score, sound mixing, color correction, and a little bit of VFX. And then the plan is to play the film as much as possible around the state and see if we can't make some noise on the festival circuit.
Check it out! Every dollar helps. Every share on social media helps.
We're off to a slow start, but we're on pace. I'll post updates here. Apologies in advance.
And you thought the Yarmouth/Cape game was wild.
In Illinois, there was an 88-84 football playoff game. 88 to 84! There's not many basketball games that are that high-scoring. Plus, they had to move the location of the game.
Ehsan Kassim, USA TODAY
High praise for Cooper from Windy.
Brian Windhorst DOUBLES DOWN on his Cooper Flagg and LeBron comparison:
— NBA Courtside (@NBA__Courtside) October 30, 2026
“In my view Cooper is better at defense than LeBron was at the same age. I don’t even think it’s debatable. There were defensive plays LeBron made at that age. He was a defensive playmaker. I think Coopers… https://t.co/gqRTf5JtMC pic.twitter.com/PAlhz2GVM4
As a state, I feel like we've been saying this would be the case for a long time?
Let's go to the C North boys Regional Final, where Fort Kent (a school that figures to have a good year) is facing Orono.
Let's look at their side-by-side schedules, thanks to the new printable game report on the matchup page.
Orono has been a wagon all season (they led C North in goals scored, allowed, and differential) and they've really only been tested a couple of times...and two of them (a 2-1 win and a 3-3 tie) were courtesy of Fort Kent. You can look at that Fort Kent schedule and see a lot of red. But it also grades out as the hardest schedule in all of C. Have they been sufficiently battle tested to get over the hump against Orono?
The rest of the Model's picks for today's games are after the jump.