Six days ago we published a piece about Cinderellas in every class of Maine spring sports. Six days. That is not a long time. That is barely long enough for a high school baseball team to play three games and a lacrosse team to play two. It is not, in any reasonable universe, long enough for the entire shape of a state tournament picture to rearrange itself.
And yet.
Several of the teams we put on a pedestal have been quietly walked off it. A couple of our underdogs are now favorites. One of our favorites is no longer in the top three. The math has moved, and GameIQ does not particularly care that we already wrote a Insights Blog about it.
So this is the correction piece, the receipts piece, the "we were wrong but in an interesting way" piece. Late May is when Heal Points finally lock in, when seeds get printed, when teams either confirm what we said about them or quietly undo it. We are here for the undoing.
Gear change. Here is what has actually happened in six days.
Class A Baseball: Bangor Is Not in the Top Three Anymore
This one hurts the most because we leaned the hardest. Bangor was sitting at 20.8 percent in GameIQ to win Class A baseball on May 26, and we called them "the two seed who is actually the one." Cute line. Aged like milk left on a dugout bench.
Bangor is no longer in GameIQ's top three for Class A. The new top three is Oxford Hills at 18.8 percent, Mount Ararat at 18.2 percent, and Gorham at 18.1 percent. That is a three-team scrum separated by seven tenths of a percentage point, and Bangor is not in it.
We are not going to pretend we know exactly what happened on the field, because the payload in front of us is bracket math, not play-by-play. What we can say is that this is the largest favorite-loss in any class we tracked. From number one to outside the top three in six days is a fall, and we are putting our hands up.
Class C Boys Lacrosse: NYA Cut in Half
North Yarmouth Academy was our 30.6 percent class favorite, and the line in our piece was "the two seed who should be number one." NYA is now GameIQ's number three at 14.4 percent. The percentage was literally cut in half.
Wells has taken over the top spot at 29.8 percent, and Gardiner is right behind at 26.4 percent. So the Class C boys lacrosse race is now a two-team conversation with NYA fighting to stay in the semifinal picture rather than running the class.
Class D Softball: Buckfield Drops to Third
We wrote about Buckfield as "the defending champ nobody wants to seed first," with the framing that GameIQ at 19.6 percent saw something Heal Points did not. The math has now moved against us here too. Buckfield is GameIQ's number three at 15.3 percent.
Katahdin has taken over at 24.5 percent. North Yarmouth Academy softball, which we did not feature, is now the number two at 16.0 percent. So our defending-champ story is now a third-favorite story, which is a less fun column to write but a more honest one to print.
Class B Softball: Hermon Slides Past Medomak Valley
This is the smallest shift on the page, but it counts. Medomak Valley was the Class B softball favorite at 26.7 percent. They are no longer the favorite. Hermon is, at 22.1 percent, with Medomak Valley right behind at 21.3 percent.
The gap is less than one full percentage point, which means Class B softball is basically a coin flip between the two of them with a long tail of everyone else. Lead changed hands, but neither team is running away with anything.
Class C Girls Lacrosse: Maranacook/Winthrop Got Worse to Bet Against
Here is the one shift that did not embarrass us. Maranacook/Winthrop was already the biggest favorite in any spring sport at 40.4 percent. They are now at 45.7 percent. The gap to the next-largest favorite in any class has widened.
This is the only class in our follow-up where the leader extended their lead. Everywhere else the brackets compressed or flipped. In Class C girls lacrosse, GameIQ is simply more sure than it was a week ago.
What Stayed Steady
For the sake of our pride, the bracket did not move on everything. Washington Academy was our Class C baseball favorite at 25.6 percent and is now sitting at 33.1 percent, even more dominant. Cheverus was the Class A softball favorite at 22.9 percent and is now at 26.7 percent, also more dominant. Falmouth in Class A boys lacrosse went from 28.4 to 30.0 percent, basically steady. Richmond in Class D baseball drifted from 30.3 to 28.7 percent, also basically steady.
So four of our calls held. Five of our calls did not, in varying degrees of "did not."
Two of our Cinderellas, for the record, are still Cinderellas. Bonny Eagle girls lacrosse is still the seven seed sitting around 4 to 5 percent in Class A. The "seven seed crashing the top five" line still applies. Maranacook/Winthrop boys lacrosse is still GameIQ-3 from the five line. The original underdog read on both of them held up better than our favorite reads did, which is a sentence we did not expect to write when we filed.
Bracket pieces have a shelf life, and ours apparently was about a week. Bracketology is going to keep moving until the tournament actually starts. The Slate is going to keep producing games that update the math. The 207 will keep reshuffling. We will keep filing.
If you want a Cinderella now, look at the teams that just became favorites. Wells in Class C boys lacrosse. Katahdin in Class D softball. Those are not the names we led with last Tuesday, and that is the whole point.
Ayuh, the brackets do what they want.