Rise Phoenix

After Friday's instant classic between Kennebunk and Falmouth, it was going to be hard for Saturday to match it. Especially if I went to the wrong game.

I went to Rockport, where Camden Hills handled MDI with ease, 35-0, to win their first football Regional Title in school history. The basketball team, of course, has a couple trophies in the case and I asked QB Hollis Schwalm about the finally adding one of their own.

I probably should have gone to Jay, where Spruce Mountain used a 25-yard TD run from Dylan Jewett with 5 minutes left to take down Mt. Ararat, 20-14.

It's been quite a turnaround for a Spruce Mountain team that went 0-7 and opted out of a playoff game in 2023 and were upset in the semifinals last year. A large part of that turnaround has been the emergence of Dylan Jewett.

From Dave Dyer's profile in the Sun Journal.

“Dylan’s speed is nearly unmatched,” [coach Devin] Roberts said. “It’s kind of deceiving, because he has such long strides. But when he takes off, there’s probably not many on the field who are going to catch him. We tell him, ‘Hey, if you see a (running) lane, take it. No one is going to catch you.’ It’s taken him a year and a half to realize that he is the quickest, fastest and potentially the best athlete on the field, at all times. Once he realized that this season, he’s gone. He just takes it and goes. That confidence is huge for him.”

Camden will attempt to win their first Gold Ball on Saturday. Spruce will be going for number 6 (if you count the 5 Jay won).

This week on the podcast, Ryan McLaughlin of the Ellsworth American joined me to talk Camden/MDI, Kennebunk's instant classic win over Falmouth, Westbrook under the bright lights, the dominance of Cony, whether Bonny Eagle can bounce back against Thornton Academy, and so much more.

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After missing nearly all of last season with an injury, JP Estrella is having an impact for Tennessee coming off the bench.

He's averaging 17.3 points and 8.7 rebounds, a considerable improvement over his first 2 seasons. How much of an improvement? His career high coming into the year was 8 points and 5 rebounds.

I look forward to seeing what sort of impact he'll have for the Vols this year.

I'm still collecting votes for the pre-season polls until Saturday, then we'll reveal the results on a podcast next week.

Now with the correct links.

Boys Pre-Season Poll

Season’s almost here!

Maine Basketball RankingsLucas McNelly

Girls Pre-Season Poll

Season’s almost here!

Maine Basketball RankingsLucas McNelly

It's understandably been an up and down start for Cooper, but the highs are pretty high.

In that game he also became the youngest player to log 26 points and 9 rebounds in a single game.

Cooper's shown so much potential that it, in some ways, forced the Mavericks to fire their GM. From Michael Pina's story in the Ringer:

In the final minute of a one-possession game, head coach Jason Kidd put the ball in his star rookie’s hands and watched him get into the paint to draw a shooting foul on Kyle Kuzma. One play later, Flagg converted a gorgeous go-ahead layup through Giannis Antetokounmpo’s vertical contest. It was a level of craft no other 18-year-old on planet earth can match.

There are many reasons to fire Harrison, but the most meaningful one right now is that he’s the last person anyone should want in charge of a team that must now build around Flagg, whose development and future are far too precious to be undermined by someone so pot committed to the present.

Nico Harrison Is an All-Time NBA Embarrassment

The now-former GM already torched one promising era. The Dallas Mavericks fired him before he could do it again.

The Ringer

Now that basketball season is back (at least the college and pros), I'm resuming my long-standing policy of sharing awesome buzzer-beaters. Let's go to Nazareth!

Game of the Day

Back in Week 4, Portland beat Bangor 42-36 behind 3 rushing TDs from Cordell Jones, then proceeded to lay an egg against Thornton Academy and Bonny Eagle in consecutive weeks. Since then, they've won 4 straight, including a win over NH's Exeter. But, they had 2 really good opportunities to come up with points and got nothing.

Bangor's profile is equally strange. They have a close loss to NH's Winnacunnet, a normal loss to Thornton Academy, and then things got a little wonky. On the final day of the regular season, they lost to Oxford Hills 34-7 on Halloween in a game where they couldn't hang on to the ball to save their lives, then turned around a week later, Kyle Johnson ripped off a 72 yard run to the house on the first play of the game, and they blew out Oxford Hills 35-6. Do you chalk the loss up to Spooky Season? Either way, it's a hard thing to get a read on.

Portland has a slight edge in Strength of Schedule. Bangor has a slight edge in point differential. Sure, Bangor lost in the regular season, but that didn't mean anything last week.

The Model has Bangor by 0.04.

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