The Curse of the Double-Digit Lead

I wrote yesterday about how leads weren't safe in the Expo and that trend continued on Thursday.

Let's get started with the Game of the Day, a showdown between Sanford's sophomore standout Mollie Puffer and SoPo's standout junior Annie Whitmore.

SoPo won the tip and Mollie Puffer promptly blocked Annie Whitmore's shot on the first possession. Then, a couple of minutes later, Whitmore blocked Puffer's shot. It seemed like a good sign for the Game of the Day, but early it was all SoPo. They raced out to a 10-0 lead before Jaslinn Johnson got Sanford on the board. They stretched the lead out to 19 as Whitmore refused to give Puffer any room to operate. But, you can't have a big lead at the Expo this week. Sanford went on a 16-2 run to get back in the game. Ava Hudson's 3 in the final minute cut it to 2. Whitmore made 1 of 2 free throws and Puffer's NBA range 3 to tie it came up short. Lucille Healy made two free throws to make the margin 5. Then Puffer was fouled with 3.7 seconds left. She made both and then...

I hate this so much. Everyone in the building knows Sanford is going to foul. Even the people taking tickets out front who can't see what's happening know Sanford is going to foul. So when Ave Hudson grabs Annie Whitmore, do they call it? Nope. They wait until Puffer has to extend her arm to foul. Whitmore falls and the refs make it an intentional foul--Puffer's 5th--and the game is over.

Time and score! But, it's also a safety issue. Call the foul!

Annie Whitmore finished with 13 points and 4 assists and was fantastic on defense the entire game. Mollie Puffer led all scorers with 15 points, 12 rebounds, and 2 blocked shots.

In the other half of the Semifinal of Death, Biddeford raced out to a 12-2 lead over Cheverus on the strength of a couple of Gabriella Silva 3's and some tenacious team defense. In the first quarter, they forced 7 turnovers. Olivia Hunter's three pushed Biddeford's lead to 11 with around 3 minutes to play in the third quarter.

And then Kylie Lamson took over. The presumptive Miss Basketball Finalist scored 15 points in a 26-9 Cheverus rally, including a clutch 3 that gave Cheverus the lead for good. She finished with 26 points. Biddeford got their own clutch three in the quarterfinals, but couldn't find one against the Stags. They missed their final 10 attempts from deep.

That made 6 consecutive games at the Expo where a double-digit lead vanished.

In the next session, Portland opened the game with a 12-0 run as Cordell Jones scored the first 7 points of the game. Obviously this was bad news for the Bulldogs.

Sanford rallied in the third quarter to cut the lead to 3, but Portland promptly went on an 8-0 run to regain control. Sanford rallied again to cut it to 5 and Portland again answered with a run of their own to slam the door. Cordell Jones finished with 15. Carter Giroux had 17 for Sanford.

But it turns out the curse of the big lead had spread.

Up in Augusta, Maranacook had a 19-point lead over Hall-Dale at the end of the third quarter. And then the Bulldogs got hot. Hall-Dale hit 7 threes in the fourth quarter and got the Maranacook lead shrunk all the way down to 1 after Austin Ferry connected from deep. Freshman Gage Mattson stopped the bleeding temporarily, but then Jack Fontaine fouled out with Maranacook up 68-65. Hall-Dale wouldn't score again and Mattson hit 4 free throws and grabbed a couple rebounds to close out the game. He had 32 & 13 (he's a freshman!). Fontaine had 26 before he exited early. Davis Madore led Hall-Dale with 18.

Dave Dyer was there.

Maranacook boys basketball holds off Hall-Dale’s frantic comeback

The Bulldogs nearly overcome a 19-point deficit in a Class C South semifinal, but Gage Mattson (32 points, 11 rebounds) helps seal the win for the Black Bears.

Centralmaine.comDave DyerStaff Writer

Mattanawcook and Fort Kent played two instant classics in the regular season, so their C North semifinal was circled by people in Bangor as a game to watch. Mattanawcook led by 10 late in the first half (it's spreading!), but Aden Jeffers took over in the second half, scoring 18 of his 23 after halftime. He also hauled in 10 rebounds and dealt 5 assists as Fort Kent pulled away.

Matt Junker was there.

Another Fort Kent-Mattanawcook barnburner ends with comeback win for Warriors

The back-and-forth between the Fort Kent Warriors and the Mattanawcook Academy Lynx made for another classic tourney battle.

Bangor Daily NewsMatt Junker

The stands were packed for the final game of Thursday's Expo slate between Cheverus and Scarborough. The addition of the former AA schools to A South has made for an electric atmosphere at the Expo for the entire tourney week and last night was the largest crowd yet.

They got what they came for at the end of the first quarter.

If you haven't seen Cheverus freshman Khaelon Watkins yet, you really should do something about that.

Watkins also beat the halftime buzzer.

And hit 2 massive threes down the stretch. He finished with 19 & 10.

Scarborough led by 1 twice in the first quarter, but never after that. Cheverus learned the lesson of the rest of the semifinals and didn't lead by 10 until the final two minutes. But Scarborough even took that 10-point lead down to 4 with 51.6 seconds left when coach Phil Conley called his final timeout. Flashback to the second quarter when he called time to save a possession a split second before his player figured it out himself and scored. You've seen that happen a bunch of times. A coach calls time and almost instantly regrets it (or the coach lucks out when the ref can't hear him). Anyway, the bucket didn't count. I was sitting next to a coach who, when Conley called the timeout, said "oh he might need that later". I don't think it's that simple--there's a butterfly effect of how a game would play out--but using your final timeout with 51.6 seconds left down 4 is a lot different than having one left down 2. Cheverus scored the next 5 points to put it away. Colton Jewett scored 21 for the Stags. Carter Blanche led all scorers with 25.

Elsewhere

Owen Corrigan went off for 30 points and 8 assists as Caribou easily handled Washington Academy...Quinn Pelletier went for 18 & 8 as Madawaska pulled away from Fort Fairfield late...Sare Devoe's 9 & 10 led Buckfield over Madison...Stella Peterson's 20 points and 9 rebounds led Mount Abram to a blowout of Monmouth...Payton Fazzina scored 23 points on 9 shot attempts to lead Wells over Maranacook...Megan House had 16/7/8 in Mattanawcook's win over Caribou...Spruce's Owen Kelvey dropped 20 on Mount View...Nola Mason's 16 & 9 led Foxcroft to a win over GSA...Maddie Grimaldi scored 19 points and Spruce held Winthrop to 3 points in the second half...Mickey Fitzsimmons scored 16 points and grabbed 9 rebounds as #1 Machias survived a scare from #5 Hodgdon

As part of a continuing collaboration with Varsity Maine, I sat down with Drew Bonifant to recap the semifinal action from the Expo, while Mike Mandell and Dave Dyer covered Augusta (and some of Bangor).

I don't know what it is about the idea of reporters still being in the gym long after everyone has gone home that I like, but it's fun.

Over on the Live Stats page, if you scroll down you'll see a button that links to a Google Drive folder that has a Game Report for every game that's been played so far. The PDF includes a box score and shot charts for individual players, like so:

Here's your EFF leaderboard for today's Regional Finals. I'm combining boys and girls. EFF is an all-in-one stat that combines scoring, rebounding, assists, and shooting efficiency.

B South

B North

A North

The Nolan Ames Experience has not disappointed in the playoffs. He's tied with Medomak's Mason Nguyen in EFF for classes A & B with 29.0 and is scoring 25 a game while pulling down 8.5 rebounds. You should, at minimum, make sure you watch him play on WHOU before he graduates.

Brunswick's scoring has been more balanced. They have 4 players averaging between 8.5 and 12.5 PPG in the first two games.

Other than Logan Gray's double dunk technical, I think the Dragons have been flying under the radar a little bit all year. They lost to Camden by 3 in Rockport in the only regular season meeting. This is not the slam dunk (technical) for Camden that people assume it'll be.

Brunswick can win this, but if Nolan Ames goes off that'll be very, very hard.

This has been moved up to hopefully beat the snow.

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