Scarborough Eliminates Windham

Day 4 of the tournament meant that it was time for the A South boys to take the stage.

For the last couple of years, the biggest schools in the state had played their quarterfinal round at the higher seeds, like a prelim. But with the new classification moving those teams into Class A, they got to play their quarterfinals on a neutral site. There was some question of how that would work at the Expo. Turns out really, really well.

The Expo was electric all day, even when South Portland was struggling to get a clean look against Portland's defense in the opener. It was the polar opposite of the S quarterfinals from earlier in the week that were a mess.

But the A South quarterfinals were great. We had three games come down to the final seconds and the fourth was a nice statement performance with some rim-rattling dunks by Max Bouchard.

In the opener, Portland's defense stifled SoPo thanks to a great performance in the middle by Benilson Lumani. They held a SoPo that averaged 61 during the regular season to 6 points in the first half. Leonel Despacho got the offense going in the second half, but also struggled to get good looks down the stretch and Portland pulled off a mild upset

Sanford has been on a heater all year under new coach John Morgan, but it was fair to wonder how they would perform on the big stage. They did just fine. Dylan Gendron scored 20 points with a True Shooting % of 67.2%. Sanford shot 7/13 from deep and advanced to the semifinals for the first time since 1996.

Cheverus led by 13 at the half thanks to a big first half by Khaelon Watkins (he had 8 of his 18 in the first half) and a 24-5 rebounding advantage. Thornton Academy didn't rebound much better in the second half, but they shot the lights out, going 9/14 (64.3%) from three. There's no better way to get back in a basketball game. Brayden Hooper's 5th three of the game cut the Cheverus lead to 61-60 with 18.7 to go. Cheverus then missed 2 free throws, got the offensive rebound and a foul, then missed those 2 free throws, but TA couldn't get the game winner to fall and the Stags escaped. De'Shaun Alston led the Trojans with 22.

As wild as the Cheverus/TA finish was, it was only the appetizer for the main course.

You'd have to live under a rock to be unaware of Windham's success the last 2 years. They've won the last 2 AA titles and as the 1 seed in A South were the favorites to three-peat.

They started slowly against Scarborough. They had 9 turnovers and 6 fouls in the first quarter as they dug themselves into a 16-9 hole. But they'd been digging themselves holes all year and had reliably rallied in the end. I'd just seen them do it late in the year against Cheverus. It got a little worrisome when AJ Moody picked up his third foul in the second quarter. In the second half, Layton Garriepy's 3-point play gave Scarborough a 43-34 lead. Then Sean LeBel scored 6 points and took a charge in a 12-2 run to give Windham a 46-45 lead and everyone assumed it was the end of the road for Scarborough. But no one told Scarborough. Adam Fitzgerald's 3 capped off a 10-0 Scarborough run to answer. Windham responded with their own 8-0 to get back in it.

But within all that chaos, was this chaos.

This came a play after the officials gave a foul to the wrong player and it wasn't hard to tell who committed the foul, as he was the player on the floor in a block/charge call and not the person standing all by himself in the corner.

Back to the game.

AJ Moody hit a deeeeep three to tie it

Tyrie James had a chance to win it in regulation, but couldn't get a shot off and we went to overtime.

The overtime was kind of an advertisement for a shot clock, as Scarborough got a lead and bled the clock. Scarborough made their free throws and Windham had a couple of chances that they just couldn't convert into buckets and Scarborough ended the dream of the three-peat.

Colin Janvrin led the Eagles with 18/4r/2b. Moody added 16. And Tyrie James had 11. Scarborough was led by Layton Garriepy's 19 points on only 11 shots. Adam Fitzgerald added 16.

Elsewhere

Nolan Ames had 26 & 6 as Camden took care of business...Akol Maiwen's 26 & 8 led Edward Little over Hampden...Logan Gray scored 16 as Brunswick cruised...Brennan Mitchell went off for 27 points and 18 boards in Mount Abram's win...Colton Scheve exploded for 32 points and 8 steals in Carrabec's win over Wiscasset...Parker Morin's 21 led Cony over Presque Isle...Jackson Barry's 13 & 13 led Ellsworth over MDI...the Monmouth boys went 21/30 from the line to outlast Telstar...Madison got 19 from Finn Haynie to beat Buckfield...Nate Grunkemeyer had 17 in Bangor's win over Lewiston...Machias got 27 points on a 90.7% TS% from Loretta Richardson in a win over 'Guag.

Because we're not busy enough, Jon Duke and I got on a podcast to talk about the first 4 days of the tournament (among other things).

You can, of course, listen to this on your podcast platform of choice.

We had a buzzer-beater in the Camden/Skowhegan game that was, um, a little late.

I don't share this to put ref (and past podcast guest) Chris Barstow on blast (well, maybe a little), but let's clarify a couple of things.

First, let's quote Jim Baines via Facebook:

Here is the NFHS interpretation: Officials must be certain that the shot was late, in order to disallow it. If there's any doubt whatsoever, count it.

So that's the first thing. Err on the side of a made bucket. Makes sense.

Second, we could review this if NFHS didn't suck. And this will be reviewable once WHOU takes over, but since NFHS can't handle the technology, it's not fixable. The sooner we get rid of NFHS, the better.

WHOU has the semifinals, even though they're basically doing the quarterfinals for NFHS. It's dumb. It's like having the ACC available for tourney games and saying, "what if we played in the WalMart parking lot instead?"

This was a nice surprise.

If you're working the tournament, it's a lot of long days and it's easier to just tell the family to not worry about you for dinner and if there's leftovers when you get home, that's a bonus. Enter a $5 meal kit of salmon and vegetables you can throw in the oven. I'm a big fan.

Now I need a sale on energy drinks.

Walking around the Expo, it doesn't take long to find someone who's got the Leavitt/Yarmouth quarterfinal circled, so it was no surprise to see it show up as the Game of the Day.

B South has a wider range of opinions than in the last couple of years, where most people felt like the region had 1 or 2 clear favorites. This year, that number is maybe 5 and one of them isn't guaranteed to go home today when Leavitt and Yarmouth play the 4/5 quarterfinal.

Leavitt lost 3 of their last 4, but I think we can forgive them.

That's a brutal finishing stretch with two pretty good losses at the end of it. When I saw Leavitt coach Mike Hathaway in the middle of it, he remarked that they'd certainly be tested and ready for the tournament. They went 11-7 and played an extra game's worth of overtime periods against the hardest schedule in the region.

Yarmouth started the year 1-2 and when they got healthy, rolled off 12 out of 13 with quality wins over York and Lake Region before tripping up against Cape Elizabeth. Can they get a date with York in the semifinals and a potential rubber match?

Or will Leavitt reach the semifinals for the first time since 1969?

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