Power's Out

The storm on Friday didn't just wipe out a major chunk of the schedule--it also wiped out the newsletter. My kid and I were at a screening of Zootopia 2 when the power blipped (we missed ~10 minutes in the third act) and at WalMart when it went out for good. The emergency lights came on, there was some disco flashing lights, and there was a 5 minute window to check out, so we left our cart in the aisle.

With no power, there was no newsletter. So it goes.

It looks like we've got more snow on the way. At least one Tuesday game has already moved to Monday. But at least we'll have a white Christmas.

As for Friday's games, let's go to South Portland, where the champs raised their banner.

We've talked a lot about the girls A South region, which has been as brutal as advertised so far.

Destiny Peters had 17 & 13. Annie Whitmore hit a shot to give SoPo the lead with 1:58 to go and the Red Riots hit a couple free throws to seal it against a very good Biddeford team.

South Portland girls finish strong to beat Biddeford

SOUTH PORTLAND—It was a banner night at Beal Gymnasium. Literally and figuratively. Friday evening, South Portland’s girls’ basketball team paid tribute to the 2024-25 Gold Ball-winning squad in a pregame ceremony. Then, in a game that would have felt right at home in the month of February, the Red

Hoffer's High School SportsMichael Hoffer

And A South, as promised, looks very hard.

Elsewhere

The Freeport boys used a 24 point 3rd quarter to blow open a close game against Fryeburg...Mountain Valley's Blake Small dropped 30 on OOB...Oliver Cormier's 15 led Mt. Blue over Skowhegan...The Yarmouth boys raced out to a 18-2 lead, only to have GNG answer with a 18-2 run. The Clippers prevailed in the end behind 18 from Ian Lawrence...Sophia Littel scored 14 to lead Greely to a comeback win over York...Bryn Gilmore's 17 led GNG over Yarmouth...Caribou's Quinn Corrigan dropped 25 on Washington Academy...Mary Allen had 30 as Bangor Christian blew out Hodgdon...Owen Corrigan went off for 37 for the Caribou boys...Rajon Reed had 31 in Bangor Christian's win over Hodgdon.

As we near Christmas, I just want to thank everyone who reads this. The newsletter is up 58% year-over-year. Site traffic is up 80%. The podcast (on a very short break) is up 87%. You get the idea. Every time I see these numbers, I'm blown away. Thank you all so much.

So we're a couple of games into the season, so the Rankings have had a chance to sort themselves out. The York boys ascend to the top spot of the boys rankings, supplanting a Camden team that had the audacity to reschedule their game on Friday. Sanford moves to third with a big win over Scarborough. Windham is 4th after beating Portland. Medomak is 5th. Valley is 6th, partly because they've outscored opponents by 41 points a game and partly because they've played 7 games already.

As for the girls, GNG takes over the top spot. Again, it helps to have played 7 games. Camden is second at 4-1 against a top 10 schedule. Mt. Ararat, the defending A champs, are third after a big win on Saturday. The Valley girls are outscoring opponents by 53.6 points a game, which is pretty good. Cheverus is 5th and leads class A in scoring.

Your team, of course, is ranked far too low.

Van Buren (the coaching change that had nothing at all to do with the parents) has found their new head coach in Jay Edgecomb, who will be their 4th coach since the start of last season.

Van Buren replaces coach who stepped down on day of season opener

Van Buren hires Jay Edgecomb as new boys basketball coach after previous coach resigns. Edgecomb brings track record of success to the team.

Bangor Daily NewsCameron Levasseur

I'm writing this as I watch the Pats/Ravens game and if you went to bed early, this is one of the worst non-calls you'll ever see.

UPDATE:

Cooper (and Ace) turned 19 over the weekend, which closes the book on the "as an 18 year old" milestones and records. The list.

The Red Sox just traded for a guy with a spray chart that should work pretty well at Fenway.

Will Campbell's injury recovery seems to be going well.

If you're not looking at the totality of a team's season and just happened to see a team once, or remembered a random score, sometimes that can be misleading. Maybe you caught them on a bad night. Maybe someone was hurt. You never know. Stuff happens.

Such is the case with both of these teams.

Lake Region lost to York 70-39 on Opening Day. And sure, it's York, but that's a big point differential even by York's standards. The only bigger one was against winless Fryeburg. Since then, they've quietly won 4 straight and find themselves in third place in B South at 4-1, but they're only +13 (because of that blowout loss).

Yarmouth is only +11 at 4-2 because they have their own blowout loss to Medomak Valley, 69-36. But they followed that up by giving York their toughest test, losing 55-53, and have quality wins over GNG and Poland.

Are these teams as good as their quality performances? Are those bad losses an outlier? These teams have 3 opponents in common and Yarmouth has done better in each of those games, so the Model has them favored on the road, but it's really close.

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