Messalonskee boys basketball players, including Jeziah Stone, front left, and Drake Brunelle, front right, listen to head coach Sam Smith during a review of advanced statistics on Jan. 23. The Eagles met in a classroom before taking the court to practice. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel

SOUTH CHINA — When Danielle Lefferts isn’t coaching in a gym, much of her preparation is done in front of a screen.

From efficiency ratings to usage rates, the Erskine Academy girls basketball coach looks at advanced statistics to help her identify strengths and weaknesses in her team and opponents. Lefferts says the dedication to advanced metrics is part of the reason her Eagles are 13-3 after going 10-9 last year.

“Just looking at some of our past few games, we were able to adjust some different spots on the floor for players in terms of where our strengths and weaknesses have seemed to be,” said Lefferts, who is in her second season. “These analytics really help me plan practice for where we’re underperforming, because we can focus on that area.”

More high school sports teams in Maine are increasingly looking to data to gain an edge. Embracing analytics, high school coaches and athletes say, is crucial to building winning programs. And for some, it’s working.

Diamond data mining

At 34, Eric Palin is younger than most Maine high school head baseball coaches. Heading into his fifth season at Messalonskee High in Oakland, Palin considers himself an “old-school” coach who goes with his gut and the eye test to make decisions.

Until recently.

Assistant coaches Jesse Beckwith, who has a day job as an engineer, and Kasen Sirois spearheaded an effort to make advanced statistics a focal point of the team’s approach.

“Jesse kind of changed my view on (analytics), and it’s become a huge piece,” Palin said. “If we’re looking at a certain spot in the order and have a lot of guys in front of that spot that are always getting on base, we’re going to look at something like contact percentage. If it’s somebody at the top of the order, we want to know how many pitches they’re taking and what’s their quality at-bat percentage.”

Contact percentage and quality at-bat percentage can provide a more in-depth look at what’s really happening in a game. They go beyond more common numbers, such as batting average, home runs or walks. Some advanced stats, like pitches per plate appearance (P/PA) or hits per nine innings (H/9), are easy to calculate, while others, such as wins above replacement (WAR) or skill-interactive earned run average (SIERA), are more complex.

Palin likes to examine what happens to baseballs put in play, making hard-hit ball percentage (HHB), line-drive percentage (LD%) and ground-ball percentage (GB%) crucial. He says contact percentage provides the most value.

“With (the number of errors high school players commit), that’s one we put a lot of stock into,” Palin said. “Our opponents last year, they were averaging a little over three errors per game, so if you’re putting the ball in play, you’re helping your chances to get on base. … If you’re making contact, you’re improving your chance to score.”

Messalonskee boys basketball players, including Drake Brunelle, center, and Liam Allen, left, focus as head coach Sam Smith reviews advanced statistics with the team. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel

In Palin’s first two years, Beckwith would do his own spreadsheets and calculate stats, though that task is significantly easier now that Messalonskee uses the GameChanger app, which collects data and breaks it down for teams to study.

Sirois also collects data, using it to build spray charts that show where the Eagles and their opponents are hitting the ball.

It’s worked to great success for Messalonskee, which went 16-4 and won the Class A North championship last season. Now, with the Eagles returning a bulk of last year’s roster, Beckwith and Sirois are looking more at the data in 2025.

“We said, ‘OK, what do we need to do better? What are we doing wrong, and what can we ascertain by pulling that same data on our own hitters and working with them next spring?’” Beckwith said. “Looking at a team, you have several hundred data points you can look at.”

Mapping out a plan

Deering High School boys soccer coach Joel Costigan is fixated with Zone 14, the area directly outside of the penalty box in the attacking half that contains the penalty arc.

It’s a crucial zone for attackers, who can produce a goal with the right run and pass, and for defenders, who must stop that from happening. Yet it’s only one of the puzzle pieces for Costigan, who began teaching his players about other zones, each with expected goals (xG) and expected assists (xA).

“Those zones and xG and xA are big things because, when we’re getting into certain areas of the pitch, we really should be scoring or putting the ball on target at the very least,’” said Ethan Fisher, a Deering senior midfielder. “When you enter each zone with the ball, (the numbers are) about, ‘OK, what are we looking for here, and what are we trying to do?’”

Deering’s Ethan Fisher tries to block a shot by Lewiston’s Mohamed Gabow during the 2023 Class A final in Oakland. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

Costigan also looked at penalty kick statistics and came across a study conducted by the Bundesliga, the top professional soccer league in Germany, that charted where players placed their shots. He’s even had players wear trackers during games to generate heat maps that show how often a player was in a certain spot of the pitch.

“It’s a great tool to kind of show, ‘Hey, I noticed your runs look like this, and we need to make them more like this,’” Costigan said. “You look at the numbers, and most turnovers are in the middle third.”

Ellsworth girls basketball coach Andy Pooler takes a similar approach to shot charts, which show exactly where his players are making and missing shots. That can help him identify offensive strengths and weaknesses. He also looks for the same in opponents.

“If we have enough data on that, it’s huge for scouting,” Pooler said. “If we’re playing a team that’s 2 for 15 from the right corner, maybe I want my defense to push things that way. On the other hand, I can say, ‘They shoot 75% from the left side, so let’s keep them away from that side of the court.’”

The Hudl revolution

The shot charts Pooler uses come from Hudl, a video hosting service that many high school sports teams subscribe to. Hudl can break down games into diagrams while also generating advanced stats.

Pooler began using Hudl in 2021-22. The following season, Ellsworth began looking at points per possession, which Pooler said helped the Eagles win the Class B title. This year, rebounding has been a point of emphasis — and that’s where Hudl enters the fray.

“Right now, we have a defensive rebound rate of 62%, which is trending in the right direction, but we probably want that to be around 70 or maybe 65 on the lower end,” Pooler said. “When I go into Hudl, I can actually click on that number and go and watch all my defensive rebounds on film. You have like 200 of them, and you can go watch them in little clips. It’s really neat.”

Erskine girls basketball players all have Hudl accounts, which they use to study individual stats. Lefferts, the coach, gives players individualized “homework assignments” based on that information.

Members of the Erskine Academy girls basketball team analyze a shot chart. Photo courtesy Olivia Childs

“They’re able to go into Hudl and see their own data analysis and then can pair that analysis with the game film to individually see their strengths and areas they can improve on,” Lefferts said. “They love being able to go back and watch themselves and specifically know what stat is being calculated in their gameplay.”

As useful as advanced statistics can be, they’re meaningless if student-athletes don’t utilize them. Lefferts said it’s crucial that her players understand the data.

“I don’t think it’s hard to understand; it’s pretty clear,” Erskine starter Madeline Clement-Cargill said. “I really like the rebounding stuff that shows you all the percentages so you can see if the other team is getting more than you. I look at that a lot.”

According to data provided by Hudl to Varsity Maine, 94% of Maine high schools use Hudl in some capacity. More than 230,000 teams use it globally.

Winthrop football coach Joel Stoneton said he used Hudl while game-planning against Oak Hill running back Kaiden Delano, the Class D South Player of the Year. Examining tendencies in how the Raiders used Delano, the Ramblers limited him to 70 rushing yards, less than half of his average of 156.7 yards.

Stoneton, who is also Winthrop’s athletic director, said the school pays $9,200 annually to use Hudl for football, basketball and soccer. The cost, he said, is worth it.

“In Class D South (football), the only way you can get film for another team is if you put it into the pool (on Hudl),” Stoneton said. “In the past five, six years, it’s become a necessity that has to be a part of your program. It’s expensive, but it’s just that important. If you don’t have it, you’re not getting film, and you’re not competitive.”

Useful tools, even if limited

Coaches say some keys to success — effort and attitude, for example — can’t be quantified. Still, there’s plenty of room for data to make a difference.

“We’re human, and we forget a lot of things, and a tool like advanced stats really helps,” said Messalonskee boys basketball coach Sam Smith. “After a game, I can say, ‘Hey, I don’t think we rebounded well in the first quarter,’ and then I look and see our rebounding percentage was 10 while theirs was 70. … It’s a by-the-numbers thing that can help you be a better coach.”

Jack Borland, Deering’s goalkeeper, has learned to combine what he’s gained from the data with his own instincts on penalties. Even if the numbers suggest he should dive a certain way based on how the opponent’s feet are positioned, he also wants to ensure his approach doesn’t become predictable.

“You like to go off the numbers, but I sometimes like to add my own judgment because you can’t always go the same way every time,” Borland said. “I think it’s definitely helped me. Looking back on the season, I felt like I was going the right way most of the time on penalty kicks.”

Even a data whiz like Beckwith, the Messalonskee assistant baseball coach, knows there are limitations to the numbers and that they’re secondary to players working hard. Still, there are times when identifying a single tendency can be the deciding factor in a game, and that’s when all the number-crunching pays off.

“Maybe it’s one or two plays in a seven-inning game, but that could be the key play where you get an extra run or get two outs instead of one,” Beckwith said. “If it can do that successfully and make that work out for you even a few plays per game, then it’s worth it.”