Varsity Maine Boys’ Game of the Year: Eight-overtime game makes history

Kade Ippolito’s short jumper with 0.6 seconds left in the eighth overtime gave Greely a 117-115 win over Fryeburg Academy on Jan. 31 in Cumberland. Photo from Aaron Wilson video

This story has been updated from a version originally published on Feb. 1, 2023.

OTHER FINALISTS

Thornton Academy 52, Bonny Eagle 51: There were four lead changes in the final 18 seconds, capped by Will Davies’ disputed buzzer-beater that sent the Golden Trojans to the Class AA South basketball final.

Brewer 52, Falmouth 51: A Cam Hughes layup with 3.9 seconds remaining, off a pass from Brock Flagg, gives the Witches their first Class A boys’ basketball championship.

Yarmouth 30, Waterville 26: The Clippers drive 86 yards for the winning touchdown – Michael McGonagle’s 2-yard run with 32 seconds left – to capture the Large School eight-man football championship.

Lewiston 2, Camden Hills 1: The Blue Devils advance in a marathon Class A North soccer quarterfinal by converting all five of their penalty kicks, after 110 minutes of action wasn’t enough to decide a winner.

Hayden MacArthur said “the game was just surreal.”

The Greely High senior reflected a day after helping the Rangers to a 117-115, eight-overtime victory over Fryeburg Academy in a boys’ basketball game on Jan. 31 in Cumberland.

“All the muscles are sore, 10 times more than if we just played a regular game,” said MacArthur, a guard. “It felt like a fever dream.”

No official records for Maine high school basketball are kept, but many observers believe it is the longest game played in Maine boys’ basketball history.

High school basketball games consist of four eight-minute quarters, but with eight four-minute overtimes, the teams played for twice the length of a regulation game before Greely’s Kade Ippolito finally won it on a short jumper with 0.6 seconds left.

“My phone has been blowing up, probably from the third or fourth overtime (on),” Greely Coach Travis Seaver said. “Crazy is a really good word for it. Looking back, it’s hard to believe it was real.”

The marathon contest is our choice as the 2022-23 Varsity Maine Boys’ Game of the Year.

The National Federation of State High School Athletic Association’s record book lists a Feb. 29, 1964, 13-overtime North Carolina game in which Boone Trail beat Angier, 56-54, as the nation’s longest high school basketball game.

The NFHS record book’s list of “most overtimes” includes several eight-overtime games. Chris Boone, the NFHS’s assistant director of publications and communications, said the NFHS has no record of any game in Maine going eight overtimes or longer, though the list of overtimes games on its website includes no games since 1994.

The numbers from the Greely-Fryeburg game were staggering. The teams combined for 232 points. Gunnar Saunders had 40 points and Lorenzo Catana Vallemani had 29 points and 21 rebounds for Fryeburg, while Tyler Pettengill scored 39 and Seamus Raftice had 23 and Ethan Michaud added 21 for Greely.

“The game had everything. It had buzzer-beaters, it had missed layups, it had missed free throws, just huge shots from both sides and huge plays from both sides,” Seaver said. “Overturned calls. It really had everything.”

Fryeburg Coach Dan Thomas has never seen anything like what occurred that evening.

“That is, No. 1, the craziest game I’ve ever been a part of. And it’s not close,” Thomas said. “It was an all-timer. … The execution and shot-making ability was something I haven’t seen at the high school level, I don’t know if ever.”

Such a finish seemed unlikely as Greely took a 10-point lead into the final two minutes of regulation, but a Fryeburg rally forced overtime and kick-started a marathon finish. Dramatic moments kept it going; Pettengill hit two tying 3-pointers in the final seconds of overtimes, including an off-balance one at the buzzer that sent the game to a sixth overtime tied at 100.

“It was a crazy shot, I was in shock,” Pettengill said. “It made me realize ‘Hey, we’re still in this.'”

As the overtimes dragged on, the game seemed to swing on each play.

“It was almost like every bucket you made matters, because we would make a shot, then they’d come down and make a shot,” Saunders said. “It was that tight, every possession.”

Seaver and Thomas said they lost track of which overtime they were playing. Players did as well.

“Even after a buzzer-beater and you’re all hyped, you sit down and you’re just kind of like ‘All right’ and take a deep breath,” Raftice said. “You just push through, and tell yourself ‘four more minutes, four more minutes.'”

Finally, Ippolito drove to the basket, pump-faked and sank a shot up close just before the buzzer sounded to end the eighth overtime. The celebration began, then had to be paused while 0.6 seconds were put on the game clock. Greely then intercepted a court-length pass to seal the victory.

For Ippolito (10 points), it was a chance at redemption. The sophomore had missed seven straight free throws, including six in overtime. But with a chance to win the game, he was ready.

“It was a pretty amazing moment that I’ll never forget,” he said. “(The free throws) were in my head, but Coach Seaver told me ‘Forget about it, move on to the next play.’ That definitely motivated me, and we got the job done.”