Fort Fairfield's Miracle at the Buzzer

Let's start with the finish everyone is talking about. And at the Game of the Day!

We head to Fort Fairfield, where the Tigers trail Madawaska by 1 with 2.3 seconds left.

That's Ethan Walsh from Graedon King (with Steve Carmichael on the call for WHOU). That alone would make it memorable, but the Tigers trailed by 8 in the 4th quarter before making the comeback and they needed two missed Madawaska free throws to even be in a position to be down 1 and have a prayer.

The BDN has a writeup:

Miraculous buzzer-beater completes wild comeback in Maine high school basketball game

It’s only December, and Maine high school basketball may have already witnessed the best game of the year.

Bangor Daily NewsMatt Junker

Again, the Model had this as the Game of the Day with Fort Fairfield winning by...1.

When people talk about rivalry games, they always say "well, you gotta throw out the records here" and while that sounds good, I'm not sure it holds up to any intellectual rigor.

The Oceanside boys, as you might have heard, have had an interesting start to their season. Head coach Larry Reed resigned, citing a level of parental interference that hasn't exactly been a secret in Midcoast Maine. They entered the game 2-3, with wins over Morse and Lincoln Academy and were 17 point underdogs, according to the Model.

But...sometimes you gotta throw the records out.

It was a packed house at Medomak Valley for a boys/girls doubleheader just before Christmas (It occurs to me that teams should always play a rivalry game just before Christmas. You'll draw well and all the recent grads will be home for Christmas break. The vibes are fantastic.) Oceanside started strong, but Kollin Donlin and Mason Nguyen got going for the Panthers near the end of the first quarter and into the second. They took a 9-point lead into the half and it seemed like they were going to pull away.

After the break, Connor Kingsbury, who played summer ball for Medomak before transferring back to Oceanside, got hot in the third quarter from deep.

He hit 3 triples and finished with 18.

After 3, Oceanside led by 3 and led by 3 with about 4 minutes left when they went into a stall to try and shorten the game.

Longtime readers will know I hate stalling in pretty much any situation outside the final minute of the game and I especially hate it when you're only up 1 score. I've been known to call it a crime against basketball. Too many things can go wrong. Medomak got a turnover and then hit a three to tie it (like that). Oceanside scored to take the lead back and Mason Nguyen hit a driving layup to tie it again at 49.

Cut to 27.5 seconds left. Oceanside was clinging to a 2 point lead with Alonzo Hoose (he led Oceanside with 19) on the line.

That's Owen Dostie with the three to send it to overtime. He had 3 3's in the fourth quarter and overtime. Mason Nguyen led all scorers with 26 points and 11 rebounds. Kollin Donlin added 17 & 11 and the Panthers survived in overtime, 68-62.

Speaking of overtime thrillers, the Hermon survived one against Old Town.

Elsewhere

Leah Jones had 12 points as Camden beat Oxford Hills by 55...Nolan Ames dropped 33 in the boys game...Logan Crowley had 25 in Sumner's win over GSA... Erskine's Kelsie Dunn had 26 points and 5 steals in a win over Waterville...Wisdom's Ava Lerman dropped 25 on Easton...Wyatt Oliver had 32 and Cyran Ciarleglio added 30 in Hodgdon's win over Central Aroostook...Lawino Bendasta had 18 in Portland's win over Falmouth...York's Nya Avery had 21 points, 14 rebounds, and 7 steals in a win over Wells...Waynflete's JJ Carlo went for 27 at OOB...Adam Fitzgerald had 20 in Scarborough's win over Noble...Silas Nielsen had 9 points and 15 boards for Sacopee Valley against NYA...Cai Dougher made his return known with 21 points for Spruce Mountain as they routed Monmouth...TA's De’Shaun Alston put up 25 on Marshwood...Olivia Breen had 22 & 14 in a win over Medomak...Reece MacDonald had 23 in York's win over Wells...Jack Fontaine and Gage Mattson each had 24 in Maranacook's win over Dirigo...Jaxson Roy-Thompson had 20 in Lisbon's win over Oak Hill...Bonny Eagle's Colin Moran dropped 30 on Biddeford...Trace Moody had 17 points and 9 boards in Gardiner's win over Leavitt...Dylan Myhal had 17 and Kennebunk connected 12 times from deep against Massabesic.

I don't know if there's a more perfect storm of games being moved than a blizzard on the last day of games before Christmas, but I would assume if your game is scheduled for 7pm tonight, it probably got moved. A couple, like the Oceanside/Medomak game, got moved up to last night. Most are just moving up a couple of hours. I started a thread on Facebook and I'm trying to catch them all, but fair warning that you should double-check the time.

Yesterday, in NBA history.

As you might imagine, the record has improved by a little bit. It's currently 268 games by, you guessed it, Steph Curry.

A South girls has been one of the Regions to Watch since the day the reclassification was announced and so far it has lived up to the hype. Let's take a look at the top 8 of the region so far.

4 of the top 6 teams in the Power Rankings are in A South and 6 of the top 25.

Cheverus makes a lot of sense as a Top 5 team. They're 4th in the state in scoring. They had that epic win on Opening Night over South Portland and gave Sanford their only loss, but their other 3 opponents are a combined 4-14 on the year, so that Class A leading scoring differential might be a bit inflated.

They'll head to Windham to take on the Eagles who are probably a bit of a surprise to be ranked as high as they are with a 3-2 record. They've got a close loss to Sanford on the road and gave Marshwood their only loss of the year--in a 62-26 blowout. They've got a good point differential against a tough schedule, thanks to the Marshwood win. Honestly I think they're probably too high. Something like #12 makes more sense because that might be an outlier. But if it isn't, they could be legit. And that would make A South even harder than we all thought.

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