Medomak Gets a Tiny Bit of Revenge

So in yesterday's newsletter, I said there were no games last night. I was wrong. There was 1 reported, a 50-46 Narraguagus win over Sumner.

There was an interesting exhibition game that lived up to expectations as part of the Christmas tourney at the Expo. But before that, Kennebunk's Sawyer Pow nearly hit a miraculous buzzer-beat against a team from NY.

Last year, York beat Medomak Valley in a rare Regional Final between two 20-0 teams. This year, they seem like they might be on a collision course for a re-match. York is 7-0 and first in the Power Rankings and Medomak is 5-1 with a loss against Camden.

York and Medomak don't play each other this year, so I found it fascinating that they scheduled an exhibition during Christmas, but it makes a ton of sense for each team. You get a good idea of how you match up against a team you might see in the playoffs and you'll inevitably learn some of your weaknesses you need to work on. It's a win-win.

Keep in mind that this game will not factor into the rankings at all. You never know how seriously a team is taking an exhibition game. Maybe they go deeper into their rotation. Maybe they're trying out some stuff. But I got the sense both teams were taking this one reasonably seriously.

York led 15-14 after one, as Reece MacDonald and Mason Nguyen traded buckets. Nguyen finished with 21. This was my first look at MacDonald this year, a player Dylan Rottkov thinks might be the best player in the state (apologies to Nolan Ames), and some of his footwork to get defenders in a blender was very impressive. Medomak has a couple of defenders who can bother MacDonald and sitting courtside I said to myself, "they're really bothering him and making him work". He had 26 points. That's how good Reece MacDonald is.

Medomak took the lead in the second quarter, thanks to a couple of nice buckets from Luke Cheesman. Then in the second half, Kollin Donlin took over. He had 18 of his 21 points in the second half, a couple of blocked shots, a bunch of rebounds, and some clutch steals. All this while being one of the primary defenders on MacDonald (along with Owen Dostie). He was awesome.

Much like the Regional Final, only in reverse, Medomak pulled away late for a 61-54 win.

I put together an edit.

Look, I've redone this 3 times because I found a couple of errors. The Game of the Day has actually changed. It's 1am. I don't care.

Last year, the Ellsworth girls had a level of injury luck that could charitably be described as "awful". The starters got hurt. The bench got hurt. The volunteer making the popcorn in the concession stand got hurt.

They had so many injuries it led to this nice moment on Senior Night, captured by Ryan McLaughlin of the Ellsworth American.

This year, things are going better. They're 6-0 with three straight wins over quality opponents, including a 19-point win in the County just before Christmas.

They'll host an Old Town team that's 5-1 in the early going with the one loss coming at home to a Hermon team Ellsworth beat on the road.

I think the Old Town loss to a Hermon team that Ellsworth beat tells us a lot here, but I'm not sure I buy the Model's spread of 11. We'll see!

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