Dirigo was hoping to build off of the momentum of handing top-ranked Hall-Dale its first loss of the season on Jan. 20, but it wasn’t just the long layoff before the Cougars’ next game that led to Friday’s 48-36 loss at Madison. It was just another example of the unpredictable nature on the Mountain Valley Conference this year.

All of the MVC teams that would be in the C South tournament if it started today have beaten each other. And the parity is making it tough on a lot of teams looking to move up in the tournament seedings in the final two weeks of the regular season.

“It’s crazy,” Dirigo coach Travis Magnusson said. “We kept saying, ‘Oh, we win this one and we’ll be in a pretty good spot. We beat the No. 1 and 2 team (Winthrop) and there’s still a chance we end up at No. 6 and have to play a prelim.”

“It shows how balanced our league is. I think the MVC’s as strong as it’s ever been. There is no easy matchup,” he added. “Usually, in Class C there is one game that you think ‘Okay, if you play this team Everybody is going to have a heck of a first-round (matchup).”

Magnusson included Waynflete (11-3) of the Western Maine Conference in the mix. The Flyers are a perennial contender battling Boothbay, Madison and Dirigo for a bye to the quarterfinals.

The Cougars have a rematch with Hall-Dale on Thursday night.

Lexi lighting it up

Sophomore captain Lexi Mittelstadt, Mt. Blue’s go-to player, continues to the light up the scoreboard.

She threw in 22 points against Cony last Thursday. Mittelstadt hit eight of her 15 free-throw attempts and threw in a pair of 3-pointers along the way.

“Another stellar game (for Mittelstadt),” Mt. Blue coach Fred Conlogue said. “She had a slow start on the line, but then she had a good second half.

Mt. Blue needed that production to hold off  a late Rams’ charge.

“I was impressed with (Cony’s) fourth quarter,” Conlogue said. “They hit those couple of 3s and they took it down to nine. We were up 17 or 18 at that point and they made it an interesting end to the game.

“I think we didn’t finish the offensive flow with 3:30 left. We thought we could close out the game and probably needed to play a little more offense,” he added.

The Cougars ended up beating the Rams, 47-38.

Rookie holding his own for Hornets 

Few freshmen, let alone freshman point guards, have the impact Wyatt Hathaway is having on the Leavitt Hornets.

Averaging 15 points per game through 11 games, Hathaway ranked sixth in scoring the Class A South midseason stat report released by WMTW’s Travis Lee last week. He also ranks fourth in assists (4.6 per game) and second in steals (3.1). 

Hathaway figured prominently in the Hornets’ plans going into the season, but with an already young team that has lost some of its more experienced players to injury, his coach, and father, Mike Hathaway, had little choice but to hit the accelerator on his development.

“We didn’t expect him to have to score so much, but where we’ve gotten so young so quick…” Mike Hathaway said. “He’s played so much basketball. he’s got a lot of experience. He’s got a good mid-range game. He’s got plenty of stuff to work on, but he’s holding his own out there for a freshman.”

Hathaway isn’t the only young Hornet holding his own. Sophomore center Cole Morin leads A South in rebounding (12.5). 

Junior co-captain Josh Banks ranks seventh in steals (2.1).

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