Playoff Football in the Rain

It's rare to have an unbeaten team that isn't rolling over everyone. Close games tend to have some inherent variance to them. Shots don't always fall at the buzzer and while some teams are better than others in the clutch, no one's perfect. Things happen. That's what makes the Cheverus field hockey season so special. They seem to keep escaping by the smallest of margins. Sure, they haven't lost in 71 games and that takes a level of end game execution, but it also takes a bit of luck.

Just look at these playoffs. They needed overtime to get by the 4th seed Sanford, their 6th 1-goal victory of the season. In the regional final, they needed penalty corners to beat a TA team that upset Biddeford.

They'll try to extend that streak to 72 games without a loss in the state championship against fellow unbeaten Mt. Ararat.

Michael Hoffer was there.

Cheverus continues magic act, survives TA in epic regional final on penalty stroke

Cheverus' field hockey team has redefined the phrase "Refuse to Lose." And now, some how, some way, the Stags find themselves just one victory away from a fourth consecutive state championship. Wednesday evening at the Kippy Mitchell Sports Complex, on the campus of Scarborough High School, top-ranked Cheverus got

Hoffer's High School SportsMichael Hoffer

Elsewhere

Moritz Mayer netted a hat trick as Telstar coasted to the 8-man South crown...TA ended Falmouth's Cinderella run with a 5-1 statement win to take their first ever A South title...Karter Eldridge's overtime goal gave Hall-Dale the edge over Mount Abram...Molly Williams had 4 goals as Camden cruised by Mt. Ararat...The Scarborough girls won their 5th straight A South title...Evelyn Stevenson broke a scoreless tie to help Maranacook repeat in C South...Annie Allen's goal gave Bangor Christian the win over Richmond...Oliver Gorchoff's overtime goal got Brunswick past Camden...Kasper Hansen scored twice in Bapst's win over Oceanside...the Yarmouth boys needed penalties to get by a pesky Cape. The Cape girls got revenge...Hayli Paradis' game winner got Monmouth by OOB...Ava Emmons scored the game winner in Freeport's upset over Yarmouth in field hockey.

I didn't have a great idea for a football interview for the Thursday podcast this week, but we're a couple weeks into the Celtics season and there's a lot to dissect, so I had Jon Duke on to talk about the early results: life without Jaylen, Paul George's impact, the struggles of Mitchell Robinson and a couple of other players, and the need of the young guys to emerge. Then, because Jon's been coaching Fall Ball for Camden this year, we talk about fall ball and how it's more about AAU programs than school teams.

And because we recorded the day after the midterms, we get into the results and I go deeper on the Bill Green debacle to ensure I'll never make the Maine Sports HOF (let's be honest, that was never happening anyway).

The UMaine women started their season off with a win at the buzzer.

That's Don Shields on the call. Miss Basketball winners Maddie Fitzpatrick (14/17r) and Lizzy Gruber (18/10r) each had a double-double in the victory.

Speaking of Miss Basketball winners, Mr. Basketball winner Will Davies continues to make noise for Vermont.

It looks like Letterboxd, the essential movie site that's supplanted IMDb as the place to look up and log films, is in talks to sell to the New York Times.

Two people familiar with the company’s interest in the deal said the Times Company would integrate its advertising technology with Letterboxd’s systems. One of the people said Letterboxd would most likely continue operating as a stand-alone site for the foreseeable future.

I swear to god if the New York Times breaks Letterboxd, we riot.

It looks like Bill Simmons might be in some actual trouble for circumventing state laws and then telling everyone about it on his podcast.

Massachusetts Regulators Want to Hear From FanDuel Regarding Bill Simmons Proxy Betting Incident, Door Not Closed on Potential Action

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission will hold an adjudicatory hearing for FanDuel regarding a proxy betting incident involving Bill Simmons.

Sports Betting DimeRobert Linnehan

The Kickstarter campaign for my film is plugging along. As of 1am, we're $15 away from 10%.

I've done or worked on a bunch of these over the years (I used to consult on them) and they basically run on momentum. The faster you can get to a viable number like 10%/20%/30%, the better your success rate. I don't have the numbers handy, but it's something like if you can get to 30% in the first week or two you're 95%+ to hit the goal.

So check it out!

The weather does not look fun for this weekend's football slate, but there's some good games. The A and C playoffs start this week. Meanwhile, 8-Man is already at their Regional Finals.

But for a slate full of playoff games, none of these games look great. The Model only projects one of them within a touchdown and only 2 within 9 points. So this could be a pretty chalky day. Or this could be the week that B South goes nuts.

Last year, Stearns lost to OOB in week 3 of the regular season 34-20 before turning around and beating them in the state championship game. This year, Stearns beat Orono 40-20 in week 3 of the regular season. You see where I'm going with this.

Can Orono pull off an upset and ruin the expected OOB/Stearns rematch?

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