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Several high school teams throughout Maine began the 2025-26 sports season at the first possible minute — midnight on Monday morning — for what is often referred to as Midnight Madness. Varsity Maine, always down for an adventure, sent our reporters to four of those midnight practices.

The Biddeford field hockey team opened for business as soon as it could be Monday morning. As midnight struck, marking the official start of the first day of high school practices, the Tigers were on the field, practicing defense, stick, handling and shooting — and laying the foundation for what they hope will be another deep run after back-to-back regional finals. (Video by Drew Bonifant/Portland Press Herald)

The Morse football team has kicked off the fall season with a high-energy Midnight Madness practice for close to a decade. There was even more energy during the first practice of the 2025 season as the Shipbuilders return to 11-man football for the first time since 2019. Morse will compete this fall in Class D after going 1-7 last season in its final year in the eight-man Large School Division. (Video by Cooper Sullivan/Times Record)

The madness runs wild in Winthrop. For the second straight year, two squadrons of Ramblers rang in the new sports year on their turf field at the same time. But this year is a little different, as both teams aren’t quite as established as they were when fall sports started a year ago. Still, both have a lot of reasons to be confident that their successes will continue. (Video by Mike Mandell/Morning Sentinel)

More to come from each of these practices. Check back later in the day or sign up for the Varsity Maine Newsletter to have high school sports stories sent to your inbox each morning throughout the high school sports year.