BRUNSWICK – While defending champion Brunswick was fighting to hold on to its title and Cape Elizabeth was taking aim at the Dragons, the Bangor girls swim team was grasping to hold on to third place after an unexpected – and quirky – disqualification in the first event of the morning at Monday’s Class A state championship meet.

Powered by the sister duo of senior Abby Lemieux and freshman Laurin Lemieux, Brunswick overcame Cape’s early push and racked up 222 points to win its second straight title in the meet at Bowdoin College’s Greason Pool.

The Capers claimed the runner-up spot with 195 points, while Bangor scored 1601/2 to finish in third place.

Deering (1501/2) and Westbrook (124) rounded out the top five. Brewer, the only other Class A team north of Oakland, did not score in the meet.

Bangor had high hopes for a championship, but after what happened in the opening event of the meet, reality started to set in.

“We came in all fired up and it really blew the wind out of our sails,” Rams coach Ginny MacMillan said. “But we fought back. These girls did such a great job. I’ve never seen a team come back like this. They finished the day so great.”

A Bangor team of senior Stacey McAvoy and sophomores Candida Carvajal, Lucy Gross, and Sarah Templeton swam well in its 200-yard medley relay preliminary heat and earned a spot in the top six for the afternoon final – or so the Rams thought. What they didn’t know was three race judges had seen a rubber hair band on one of the girls’ wrist.

Meet referee Scott Morrison disqualified the team because of a National Federation of State High School Associations rule that states that swimmers are not allowed to wear jewelry (with certain religious or medical exceptions) and a case scenario in the rulebook that defines elastic hair bands as jewelry.

MacMillan filed an appeal with Morrison because of certain occasions when the rule had supposedly been overturned or overlooked.

Morrison, MPA swim committee representative Paula Callan, and three other officials met a few hours later to discuss the appeal and decided that the original ruling stood. The Rams had a team meeting and pulled together. Even if Bangor had won the relay it still would not have won the meet, but the incident, Gross said, was unsettling.

“But we had a meeting in the middle of the trials and we got back into it, so that was good,” said Gross. “I think our coaches are pretty proud of us for pulling it together, because it was pretty tragic.”

The Rams got fine performances from sophomores Gross and Carvajal. Gross finished fifth in the 50 free and third in the fly even though she was seeded sixth.

Carvajal was second in the 100 free and the 50 free, which she might have won except for a big gulp of water she took on her turn that hurt her breathing.

Gross and Carvajal swam the third and fourth 400 free relay legs, respectively. Bangor took fourth in that relay and fourth in the 200 free relay that was anchored by McAvoy.

McAvoy turned in some good swims in her final meet, including a fifth in the 100 backstroke and a 10th in the 100 free.

Bangor’s diving corps was also strong. The four divers took third, sixth, seventh and tied for eighth (sophomore Sammy Hartery had the highest finish of the four).

Cape Elizabeth won the first three events of the afternoon and led until the seventh event, the 100 free, in which Brunswick’s Ruth May and Lindsey Fish went 4-5 while Cape had a swimmer finish 11th. The Dragons rolled from there. Abby Lemieux won the 100 back and Brunswick took the 400 free relay to clinch it.

The Lemieux sisters, who are on rival club swimming teams (Abby swims for Long Reach in Bath and Laurin swims for the Portland Porpoises), were happy to be on the same high school squad for their only year in high school together.

“It’s incredibly special … just to be able to share this with her,” said Abby Lemieux. “I think a lot of the reason why she chose [swimming for Brunswick rather than the Porpoises this winter] was to have this final opportunity to swim with me.”

Brewer didn’t have any swimmers or divers in the evening’s finals, but the Witches stayed for the entire meet to cheer on Bangor.

Cape Elizabeth junior Whitney Rockwell was named the Swimmer of the Meet for her first in the 200 individual medley, state and meet record in the 100 breaststroke, and firsts on Cape’s winning medley relay and 200 free relay squads.