Week 4!

Well we finally got some rain, which washed out most of yesterday's slate. That should set up a busy (and dry) weekend around the state.

But first, we have to overreact to Week 3 with the help of this week's guest on the podcast: Marc Calnan of Eastern Maine Sports. If you're unfamiliar with Eastern Maine Sports, Marc and his team do a great job covering multiple sports, primarily in Eastern Maine, but they cover a lot more than that.

We go around the state, class by class, and take a look at who's emerging as contenders, who really needs a win this week to keep their season alive, and who can maybe start to think about basketball season (it's never too early to think about basketball season).

Plus, we talk a little basketball and I do another movie corner.

Check it out!

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As always, you can listen to it on Spotify, if that's your preference.

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The schedule-makers did a great job with Week 4's football schedule. We've got multiple matchups between unbeaten teams, like Noble @ Bonny Eagle (Varsity Maine's Game of the Week), Winthrop @ Dirigo, Winslow @ Bapst, and Telstar @ OOB. And that's just the unbeaten teams. There's great games up and down the schedule.

Earlier this week, I went on Gabe Nason's Athlete First Media podcast.

There's some origin story stuff in here, including my Stephen King tourney story that might be complete nonsense. We also talk about some 90's high school basketball, indie film, and a bunch of other stuff. Is it the only episode in the history of podcasting to mention Richard Linklater and Josh Nash? Probably!

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Rankings are updated for Soccer and Field Hockey as well. I'm chipping away at picking up the missing games that didn't get reported on the day, so if you see one that's missing, let me know.

Here's Field Hockey:

So how's the Model doing on the year thus far? Not bad!

Boys Soccer: 237-59 (80.1%)
Girls Soccer: 235-68 (77.6%)
Field Hockey: 140-40 (77.8%)
Football: 75-43 (63.6%)

Heal Points

If you're new here, you might not know that I calculate my own Heal Points, a thing I built years ago because I wanted a Heal Point experience that was easy to read and contained some data the official Heals at the MPA site just didn't have. It's been a pretty popular function, mostly because it was easy to read and didn't take FOREVER to load (if you know, you know).

Now there's a new MPA site that's in-progress and the difference between my Heals and the alternative is...stark.

In the fall, my version of the Heal Points also calculates Crabtree for soccer and field hockey (and Heals for football), if that's of interest to you.

Dexter's cash money

Dexter had a very good news day.

‘Just crazy to think about’: Dexter High School could win $1M football prize

As one of 25 finalists, the school received a $25,000 grant with a shout-out from former Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski.

Bangor Daily NewsMatt Junker

They're a finalist in the Friday Night 5G Lights contest put on by T-Mobile. They've already gotten a $25K grant for making the finals, but if they win, they'll get a cool million. At this stage in the process, it's a public vote, so we need the entire state to vote for Dexter, for obvious reasons.

Game of the Day

Let's head to Class D, where we've got 2 matchups between 3-0 teams, one in the south and one in the north. We're going to focus on the north.

Winslow is first in the state in scoring, at 54.67 ppg, and only a point behind Cony in scoring differential with +135 (in three games!). They'll head to Bapst to take on the 5th scoring offense in the state (47.0 ppg). So it'll be a high scoring game, right? Maybe? Bapst is 6th in scoring defense with 9.0 ppg allowed and Winslow is 9th with 9.67 ppg. Something has to give.

The Model likes John Bapst by 14.5.

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