Given the history of great teams and great players at Winthrop and Hall-Dale high schools, you might think there would be more classics in the vault like Winthrop's 85-78 double overtime win over the Bulldogs on Thursday night.

There aren't, though. The teams didn't play for nearly 20 years when they operated in different conferences, Winthrop in the Mountain Valley and Hall-Dale in the Mid-Maine. They renewed their rivalry in 1997 when Hall-Dale joined the MVC and actually put on a pretty good show at Hall-Dale that year with Chris Ranslow and Chris Benner leading the Bulldogs and Eric Lough leading the Ramblers.
Since then, it seems one team or the other has held the upper hand, although there's a blip on the screen in '04 when an overmatched Winthrop team lost by a point to the Bulldogs. Hall-Dale controlled the rivalry during Matt Wheelock's years, culminated by the Class C state title in 2005. The following year, led by Sam Leclerc, Winthrop went on a three-year run, capped by a Class C state title in 2008.
There may not be any state titles in the offing for either team this season, but that takes nothing away from Thursday night's hard-fought matchup. There's less than 15 miles between the towns which means they'll always be good crowds on hand. The schools have six state titles between them and can boast some of the state's best-ever players $ Winthrop's Dennis Clark and T.J. Caouette come readily to mind, as do Hall-Dale's Brad Moore and Cam Brown.
Long live the rivalry.