York Falls to Yarmouth

Let's go to York, where the Wildcats started the evening as one of the last unbeaten teams in the state. In their first 11 wins, they were only really tested once--a 2 point win on December 12th in Yarmouth. Last night, Yarmouth finished the job. The Clippers trailed by 11 after the first quarter, but wouldn't be daunted. They mostly dug themselves out of the hole in the second quarter, then used a big third quarter to take the lead. Evan Oranellas scored 28 points to lead Yarmouth, including 3 triples in the fourth quarter to seal the win and vault into third place in B South.

The Game of the Day was a playoff atmosphere in Waldoboro as Medomak Valley hosted Cony with the Worldwide Leader in the house.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Maine Basketball Rankings (@mainebasketballrankings)

Cony got off to a fast start with this Carter Braithwaite dunk.

He quickly found himself on the bench with 2 fouls (more on that later). Cony was able to survive the minutes he sat and led 18-16 after 1. The Rams used a late second quarter run to extend the lead to 13 at the half.

This was my second countable Cony game this year and besides how impressive Braithwaite is (He's. A. Freshman!), my main takeaway from the first half was that the Cony defense was much improved from the game against Gardiner at the ACC.

So there were 2 officials for this game, which struck me as unusual. You'd really want 3 refs for Cony/Medomak and I think the refs struggled to call this game for the first three quarters. Everyone was in foul trouble and no one was happy.

Moments after this, uh, common foul, Nguyen was called for two fouls to give him 4 with about 3 minutes left in the third quarter. And Medomak left him in.

Just like in the first matchup in Augusta, Medomak worked their way back. But it wasn't easy. Every time the Panthers hit a big three to swing momentum, Cony would answer with a three of their own. But the Panthers slowly clawed their way back in it.

Eventually they got a call they agreed with.

Let's go to the middle of the fourth quarter, because I want to talk about the refs. With a couple of minutes left, Nguyen, Braithwaite, Parker Morin, Kollin Donlin, and one other Cony player all had 4 fouls. That's a lot! And then, the refs let them play. All four of the major players with 4 fouls had at least one play where they could have been called for a foul, but the refs swallowed their whistles. As they should

I can think of a lot of refs that would have fouled one or all four of them out of the game, but kudos to them for letting the players decide the game.

Medomak tied the game with 2 minutes to go.

Jackson Kay hit 2 free throws to break the tie and Nguyen lost control of the ball on the other end and had to foul to stop the clock. Cony went 6/6 from the line in the final minute to escape with a win. Kay finished with 19 and Braithwaite had 23 for Cony. Mason Nguyen led all scorers with 25 for Medomak. Kollin Donlin added 22.

If you can see either of these teams in person, I highly recommend it.

The Lewiston boys have been light on highlights for the last couple of seasons, but they got one fantastic game winner last night against Edward Little.

Elsewhere

Nolan Ames dropped 25 on Skowhegan...Max Bouchard's 17 led Bonny Eagle over Marshwood...Khaelon Watkins led Cheverus with 19 against Deering...Gavin Fanjoy went off for 34 points and 7 dunks in Erskine's win over MCI...Gavin Fanjoy had 22 as Falmouth rallied to beat Scarborough...Colin Schlobohm (17/10/8) just missed a triple-double as Leavitt blew out Waterville...Biddeford's Gabby Silva dropped 23 on Windham...Kylie Lamson had 17 as Cheverus blew out Deering...Sierra Gibbons' 14 helped Hall-Dale upset Madison...Maddie Provost went off for 31 against Nokomis...Gabby Smith scored 16 and Leavitt pitched a second quarter shutout of Waterville...Chloe Anderson's led Lincoln Academy over Morse...Riley Ewing had 17 in Kennebunk's win over Portland...Colin Janvrin scored 19 to lead Windham over Biddeford...SoPo's Gabe Jackson dropped 24 on Gorham...Lucky Kabeya had 19 points and 5 steals as Pine Tree beat Forest Hills. Jaxson Desjardins had 32 in the loss...TA's Simon Gellis dropped 23 on Westbrook...JJ Carlo's 18 helped Waynflete hold off a Sacopee Valley rally...Trot Moody's 24 wasn't enough to get OOB past Wells...Abigal McCarty's 16 led Mount Abram by Mountain Valley...Caleigh Corcoran had 23 and Annie Whitmore added 21 in SoPo's win over Gorham...Alaina Kachnovich and Lilly Bellerose each scored 15 in Spruce's blowout of Winthrop...Megyn Mertens' 14 & 10 helped Wells cruise past OOB...Celia Bergdahl scored 26 points and Alice Ferran added a double-double (11 & 12) as Maranacook crushed Lisbon...Natalie Lathrop dropped 26 on Bonny Eagle...Dylan Myhal drained 8 3's as Kennebunk knocked off Portland.

Jay Baines and I stayed up late last night to record the boys half of the of the Tourney Odds and Heal Points update. Much like the girls' podcast earlier this week, we went region-by-region to see what teams are in, what teams are out, and what teams have work to do.

Click here to subscribe to the YouTube channel.

We're very tired.

Tatum's coming back!

We'll go to D South boys, where Mount Abram hosts Monmouth. Both teams have a bye pretty much locked up and the Roadrunners have the inside track on the 1 seed. Their main threat is Monmouth.

They've already played once, a 87-57 win by Monmouth all the way back on December 11th, the first game in a stretch where Mount Abram lost three straight. Since then they've won 8 in a row and are 10th in the state in scoring offense (first in D South).

Monmouth's resume is a strange one.

They've got 4 losses, but all against quality opponents and you'd think perhaps they would just slot in behind those four teams, but the blowouts of Mount Abram and Valley make me think there's more there. If they call pull off the sweep, they can make a run at the 1 seed.

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