Maine’s Heal points a time-tested formula, but many coaches want improvements
Freeport field hockey head coach Marcia Wood directs her players during a preseason practice. ood says the Heal point system that is used to determine the playoff field has its flaws.(Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer)
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In 2025, the Bonny Eagle High School boys basketball team caught a break. The Scots were 6-11 and headed for the last playoff spot in Class AA South, until a victory in the regular season finale over Noble High School allowed them to jump from seventh to fourth, and from a road to a home playoff game.
The 16-1 Noble Knights were without four starters for much of the game, but as far as the Heal point standings were concerned, it didn’t matter. In the tournament, Bonny Eagle parlayed its good fortune into a quarterfinal win over Sanford, and then a shocking semifinal win over No. 1 Thornton Academy.
“It was kind of a gift for us,” Scots coach John Trull said. “If I were another coach, I’d probably be upset. … But it motivated us. We had to prove that we deserved to be in that spot.”
The scenario showed both the strengths and flaws of the Heal point formula, the system the Maine Principals’ Association has used to seed most high school sports (football excluded) for postseason play. Developed by Durward Heal, a former principal of Schenck High in East Millinocket, and implemented in the 1949-50 season, Heal points rank teams according to their strength by factoring in not just their record but the quality of their victories.
And for over 75 years, while sometimes challenged, no one has found a better, more fair way to do it.
“It’s as equitable a system as there is,” Cheverus girls hockey coach Scott Rousseau said. “I don’t think it’s the perfect system, but generally speaking, it gets it right.”
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MPA executive director Mike Bisson noted the objectivity of the Heal points formula, which separates itself from more opinion-based rankings and polls used in some other states.
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“While it’s not a perfect system, it’s a mathematical formula,” he said. “And any type of power ranking based on a mathematical formula is going to have some weird things in it.”
While most of the coaches interviewed approve of the structure, there are dissidents whose arguments include that the system can punish victories over weaker opponents, lead to scheduling difficulties and reward victories over opponents with good records, rather than opponents tested by better competition.
A Varsity Maine email survey sent to more than 200 coaches asking if they think Heal points are an effective system, an effective system that could be improved, or not effective received 55 responses. Twenty said it’s effective as is, while 35 said either that the system should be improved or that it just doesn’t work.
“Heal points are no longer effective as currently constructed,” Rob Sullivan, the girls basketball coach at Kennebunk for 30 years, wrote in an email. “It is an outdated system that could easily be replaced for a much simpler system.”
‘ONE OF THE BEST SYSTEMS YOU CAN HAVE’
Heal points work by awarding a point value to a team based on how often it wins and the quality of the teams that it beats.
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Here’s how the formula works:
- A team is assigned a preliminary index based on their wins — everyone gets 40 points for a win over a Class A team, 38 for Class B, 36 for Class C, 34 for Class D and 32 for eight-man or Class S. Classes are determined by enrollment.
- That number is then divided by the number of scheduled games. The preliminary index grows as the season goes on.
- Next, you add up all of the preliminary indices for the teams you defeated, and divide that by the number of scheduled games.
- That number is then multiplied by 10, which gives you a team’s tournament index.
- The teams are then ranked by their tournament index to form the Heal point standings. Teams at the top, are the top teams of the year.
Debate surrounding Heals and their effectiveness has gone on for decades. Proponents of the system like that it goes beyond just win-loss record, paints a more accurate hierarchy by factoring in who teams have beaten, and aim to provide balance in classes where teams don’t all share common opponents.
Lucas McNelly, who runs the Maine Basketball Rankings website, developed his own formula that ranks teams and predicts outcomes based on a variety of factors, including point differential and home and road performance. He said, though, that Heal points are “one of the best methods you can have.”
“I think the bones of Heal points are so good that I built the entire ranking system on them,” he said. “Every game in the state matters, and it’s hard to find a system that does that. … It can swing a seeding in C North on the last day of the season. I think that level of chaos is awesome.”
McNelly said the ideal system would include every team in a region playing each other twice, but Maine’s geography prohibits that.
“Let’s say Caribou and Gardiner are in the same (region). … You can’t do that on a Tuesday night for a game,” he said. “The state’s too big. The state’s never going to not be big.”
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South Portland boys basketball coach Kevin Millington said a big strength of Heal points is that they reward strength of victory (beating good teams) rather than strength of schedule (simply playing them). Craig Roberts, Scarborough’s girls soccer coach, said tournament results have validated the formula.
“The system has gotten it right,” he said. “If you look at the last four teams standing in the regional semis and regional finals, typically it’s the teams that are at the top (or) near the top of the Heal points.”
Brunswick girls basketball coach Sam Farrell likes that Heal points can give a team that would otherwise be out of the playoff race something to play for late in the season.
“I like being rewarded for big wins,” he said. “It keeps the kids motivated: ‘Hey, I know what our record is, but this game matters.’ You can shock the world, and now you get to play in the (Augusta) Civic Center.”
HEAL POINT HICCUPS
Opponents, however, say the system often doesn’t churn out the best representation within a region. A frequent criticism from the coaches’ survey was that Heal points favor teams that beat opponents with many wins, without taking into consideration whether those wins came against strong opponents.
Conversely, a team wouldn’t get as many points for beating a good team that plays strong competition, but has an inferior record as a result.
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Boothbay boys basketball coach Dan Hallinan’s Class D team, which plays in the Mountain Valley Conference with several Class C schools, missed the tournament last year despite playing 10 Class C teams and beating two, while three of the teams that qualified played a combined two C teams and beat none.
“We have been penalized for playing a much harder schedule,” he said. “We are rewarding teams for playing weaker schedules. The best (or) better teams aren’t being placed appropriately seeding-wise, or not making the tournament at all.”
Freeport field hockey and girls lacrosse coach Marcia Wood said she sees a similar dynamic in lacrosse, where teams that play in tougher conferences get seeded lower because they don’t get the number of wins that teams that play weaker schedules do.
Because of that, she said, the two strongest teams can meet up in earlier rounds of the tournament, and “the game before states is the big game.”
Some conferences allow schools the ability to schedule a fixed number of out-of-conference games, but the process of determining which teams to compete against also becomes complicated under the Heal points system.
Deering boys soccer coach Joel Costigan says the Heal point system that the Maine Principals’ Association uses to finalize playoff fields in most sports isn’t perfect. (Derek Davis/Staff Photographer) Purchase this image
“Now you have the decision to make of, ‘OK … (who) makes the most sense to play against?'” Dirigo boys basketball coach Cody St. Germain said. “The team that’s geographically close and also gives you a challenge? Or a lot of teams are saying, ‘I’m going to go play a 16-win team that stinks that I know I’m going to beat because I know I get 16 guaranteed Heal points out of going and beating that team.
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“And we’re starting to see now there are teams that are really utilizing that to their advantage, and I can’t really blame them. I’ve considered it myself at times.”
How Heal points factor into scheduling can also raise issues from an administrative perspective.
Leavitt Athletic Director Ryan LaRoche said it can be difficult to find games for different sports, as well as for girls programs versus boys programs, given different classifications and talent levels.
“There are definitely teams in the state where the boys team is not competitive at all and the girls team is in the state championship every year,” he said. “So when the conference is making a schedule and they’re looking at crossovers that are appropriate, they’re trying to keep those the same for the boys and the girls, it’s sometimes a challenge to make that work where you don’t want a team that’s bad to just have to play good teams every week.
“But if you have a team that’s very competitive and historically successful, you want them to be able to play the best teams and have those opportunities for the Heal points.”
Mt. Blue baseball coach Steve Porter and Deering boys soccer coach Joel Costigan shared another qualm with the structure: wins over bad teams in-conference earn too few points, and teams can be passed in the standings despite winning games they are obigated to play.
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“The Heal points are a way to address the scheduling disparities, but they also create disparities in the points,” Costigan said. “You (can) have a team with more wins, but those wins don’t matter because they still finished behind a team that had fewer wins. I see that every year.”
NO ‘REAL TRACTION’ FOR CHANGE
Several soccer coaches said they’d like to see a more straightforward system of awarding three points for wins and one for ties, while Sullivan at Kennebunk said he’d like to see Heals eliminated in favor of an open tournament.
Brunswick girls basketball coach Sam Farrell, front, says he’d like to see the Heal points formula tweaked a bit. (Times Record photo)
Farrell at Brunswick said he’d prefer a return to the former difference of five points for a win in each class, rather than the current two, in order to discourage teams looking for wins against teams in lower classes.
Bisson at the MPA said he hasn’t had people come forward “with any proposals that have gained any real traction to change.”
“We would certainly listen if people had an alternative that they felt was a better option and gained some support from the schools,” Bisson said.
For over 70 years, no one’s developed a better one.
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Tagged: bonny eagle scots, boothbay seahawks, brunswick dragons, cheverus stags, deering rams, dirigo cougars, freeport falcons, kennebunk rams, leavitt hornets, scarborough red storm
Drew Bonifant covers sports for the Press Herald, with beats in high school football, basketball and baseball. He was previously part of the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel sports team. A New Hampshire. More by Drew Bonifant
Jimmy covers sports for the Sun Journal, primarily contributing to the Varsity Maine team. He is from Hagerstown, Maryland, and graduated from the University of Richmond in May of 2025 with a B.A. in journalism. More by Jimmy James
