Valleys
The Valley buzzsaw claims two more victims
The S South tournament kicked off last night in Augusta with Valley, Forest Hills, and Greenville all playing a double header. It was great to be back in the ACC in playoff mode, even if the games were all pretty much a dud, competitively-speaking.
But there were moments.
Jaxson Desjardins continued the family tradition of putting up big scoring numbers at the ACC, going off for 36 & 10 against Temple, but it was the two points he didn't score that had everyone talking.
Desjardins took a rebound coast-to-coast for an easy layup, but before the ball can go through the net, his teammate grabbed the rim. Even my hatred of dunk technicals couldn't find a way for it to not be a technical. But since the ball wasn't through yet, they also waived off the basket, giving us a basket interference technical. And in Class S! What are the odds?
Forest Hills rolled.
The Forest Hills girls also rolled behind 25 points from Janessa Moffit and 20 rebounds from Morgan Petrucci (who might be Daigle). Forest Hills will play the winner of Vinalhaven and Pine Tree.
Then it was Valley's turn and oh boy was it Valley's turn.
The Valley boys were up first and they were up to the task. The defense was swarming. They had 11 steals in the first half and it felt like a million. They just came in waves. Valley pulled the starters early. Fisher Tewksbury only played 15 minutes. He still scored 12 points and had 10 boards. Harry Louis had 19 to go with 7 assists. They went on a 39-0 run between Greenville's first and second bucket. They put in four 8th graders in the second unit and then they had to pull them. Eventually it was Valley's third string against 3 of Greenville's starters and Valley still won the 4th quarter and rolled to a 70-16 win.
The Rangeley girls returned to varsity basketball this year for the first time in 3 years. They won 2 games this year, which probably exceeded expectations, and as a reward, they got an hour and 45 minute drive each way to face a Valley team who spent the preseason scrimmaging a 13-5 class A team for fun. After the first quarter, it was 34-1. The Lakers had no answer for Kirsten Bigelow and Liana Hartwell. Bigelow had 29 points and 7 steals in 17 minutes. Hartwell had a 17 minute triple-double (13 points, 10 assists, and 12 steals). They were +65 and +60, respectively. It was 53-1 before Rangeley hit their second free throw. It's not a pleasant experience to get smoked by a buzzsaw like Valley, but rebuilding a program takes time and when you're as young as Rangeley Lakes is (the program said they started a 6th grader?), the experience is valuable, regardless of the score.
Mike Mandell wrote about the first day of the S South tourney.
Mike MandellStaff Writer
As you might imagine, people weren't totally locked in to the second half of the Valley girls game.
Oceanside and Lincoln Academy played an instant classic for a ticket to Portland. Oceanside and LA have played a couple of these in the last couple of years. Oceanside swept the season series and when they led 44-36 with 6 minutes left, it looked like they'd win that tricky third game, but Lincoln Academy came roaring back. They went on a 10-0 run. Aidyn Herring hit a three and Chase Ober's three gave the Eagles the lead. He finished with 21. Lincoln Academy held Oceanside to 2 points in the 4th quarter to force overtime. Brody Day's layup off a James Hanley steal was the winner and the Eagles advanced. They'll play Medomak Valley in the quarterfinals.
Elsewhere
Max Bouchard's 14 points led #10 Bonny Eagle to a slight upset of #7 Westbrook...Dirigo's Brady Philbrick hit 5 shots from deep en route to 18 points as the #7 Cougars eliminated #10 Winslow...Sienna Eldred had 19 points in #7 Thornton Academy's win over #10 Kennebunk....Braden New's 23 points wasn't enough for #8 Oak Hill to advance over #9 Wells. They'll play Spruce Mountain in the quarterfinals.
Maine Basketball Rankings is only made possible by our subscribers
To get more data, game predictions, and more
Subscribe now
I've got tourney stats up and running. This should be able to update rather quickly, so I might be able to get this updated during all the session breaks.
You can take the larger view or filter by gender, team, and region. Say, if you wanted to know who's had the best tourney in each region (or overall!)
You may have heard the story of the Portland hockey coach who pulled his team off the ice after 10 minutes because he didn't agree with a couple of calls.
Travis LazarczykColumnist
It's a weird story, because who does that? And you have to suspect there's more to the story.
Yesterday, another shoe dropped as Portland, by rule, was forced to forfeit the remainder of their season.
The forfeit comes with a 2 year ban on playing, although I wonder if Portland's appeal will be successful if they replace their coach. This doesn't seem to be a systemic issue and could just be a one-off mistake. Stay tuned.
We're back in Augusta and Bangor today to finish off the S quarterfinals, but there's a couple more prelims scattered around the state.
Cape Elizabeth started the season 2-7 and were ranked 103rd in the first half of the season, but they turned it around. They nearly beat Lake Region and then they actually beat Yarmouth to find themselves in the play-in.
They'll face GNG. The Patriots won their first 2 (including a win over Cape), then lost 10 of 11 before shocking Lake Region to sneak in over Morse.
Winner gets a date with York.
The Model's picks for the rest of today's games are after the jump.