If it hasn’t already been said, it’s clear after the release of the final Class A Heal Point standings Saturday that it should have been at some point — math never solved nothin’.
The Eastern A Heals were completed and about the only thing they cleared up was the top two seeds, Bangor and Oxford Hills, respectively.
The season also concluded with not one but two ties in the tournament index. Gardiner and Cony tied at 96.8519. Skowhegan and Leavitt tied at 67.2222.
“Even if you carried it out eight decimal places, we’re still tied,” said Leavitt coach Mike Remillard.
The Hornets finished the regular season 9-9, Skowhegan 8-10, but the Indians get the nod for the 11th spot because they won their only head-to-head meeting.
“They beat us by four early this year and had a huge win at Messalonskee to end their season and got a ton of points,” Remillard said.
As a result, the Hornets draw No. 5 Lewiston (11-7) and the Indians face No. 6 Gardiner in next Wednesday’s preliminaries. Gardiner got the nod over Cony by winning their head-to-head matchup.
Lewiston coach Jason Fuller saw the final standings as a mixed bag.
“I was afraid we were going to drop down to six or seven (after losing their last three regular season games, but Leavitt is a great team, as talented as anybody, so they’re not a good draw for us,” said Fuller, whose team beat the Hornets, 59-52, during the regular season.
No. 8 Mt. Blue (11-7) drew a team that it didn’t see during the regular season, Hampden Academy (14-4) of the Little East Conference. The Cougars also drew a Little East foe in last year’s prelims, Brewer, which they routed, but the two schools had played a crossover game during the regular season.
“It’s always easier to play against someone that you’ve played before because you always have a better sense of what they do,” said Mt. Blue coach Jim Bessey. “After we played Brewer, we had a better idea of what we could do the second time. But we have tapes of (Hampden) and they have tapes of us, so it’s not like we’re not going to be familiar with each other.”
The winner of the Mt. Blue/Hampden game will have the unenviable task of taking on Bangor (17-1) in the quarterfinals of the last Eastern A tournament to be held at the Bangor Auditorium.
Oxford Hills (15-3) also earned a bye and will face the winner of the 7-10 matchup between Cony and Lawrence.
The city of Portland swept the top three seeds in Western A, with Cheverus, Portland and Deering finishing 1-2-3 respectively.
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