Brewer, Old Town are champs Orono, CAHS also capture regional titles

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BANGOR – When it came to Saturday’s full day of regional cheerleading championship action, they saved the best for last.

And after a confusing and emotion-wringing end to a competitive morning session, some might say the worst went first.

Brewer’s Witches capped 14 hours of highs and lows, drama and disappointment, consolation and celebration by wowing the assembled judges and a big portion of the crowd of 5,100 – many of them partisan fans – with a high-energy, high-difficulty routine that won them the two highest scores of the day and the two highest scores posted in Eastern regional competition in at least seven years.

Despite having to replace seven experienced senior leaders from last year’s Class A Eastern Maine title team, the Witches were able to come back even stronger as they posted a score of 86.5 points in the preliminary round and 87.75 in the finals at the Bangor Auditorium.

Much earlier in the day, things started off on an unfortunate note as the wrong team was announced as the winner of a tiebreaker in the Class B competition and another team which was not initially included among the top four – the positions necessary to secure a trip to the state championships – was moved in after a computer glitch was discovered Saturday morning.

After the chaos and confusion were dispelled, Old Town edged defending champ Houlton by half a point in the second tiebreaker (total points from two categories: overall appeal and perfection of routine) and the two annual contenders were joined by not two, but three other state-meet bound teams after the second mistake was corrected and Rockland was elevated to third place.

In between all of this, new champions were crowned in Classes C and D as the Orono Red Riots, who didn’t even have a team two years ago, won the “C” title with clever choreography and Central Aroostook of Mars Hill returned to prominence by winning its first Class D crown in 11 years.

The best possible score for a team is 100 as the eight judges award up to 10 points each for fundamentals and perfection of routines along with a maximum of five points each for various characteristics within the routine, such as jumps, stunts, pyramids, tumbling, creativity and voice projection.

Class A – Although she expected the scores to be good, even Brewer Witches coach Kristie Reed admitted she was impressed.

“We lost a lot of true leadership last year so we had to have some kids take that over,” she said. “I would say it’s not that we worked harder, but we might have had more to work with since there’s a lot of talent here. … And it was a really good week of practice.”

It’s been a good two months of practice as Brewer crammed everything from front-stretch, back-stretch and scorpion extensions to pyramids to aerials to mass handspring/backflip tumbling to a new move they haven’t even come up with a name for yet.

“The swinging thing,” Reed said. “We don’t know what to call it.”

Whether you prefer to call it the swing, the rocking horse, or “it,” the stunt, which was introduced by team choreographer Adam French and performed by only one other team (Houlton) all day, involves two girls being raised on extensions (mini-pyramids) formed by their teammates and then being pushed rapidly back and forth to mimic vertically swinging doors.

“It’s one of the more fun, wow-type effects because everybody thinks ‘Oh, they’re gonna drop a stunt’ but it’s just part of the effect,” said Samantha Floyd.

Fellow Brewer senior co-captain Jessica Deane says her teammates love to keep tweaking the script.

“Every time we go out on the floor, we’ve put a new thing in,” Deane said. “We love adding things to make our routines more exciting and try to keep improving.”

Brewer’s other team members are Whitney Boudreau, Christina Bush, Amber Dumond, Riley Godley, Malori Hardin, Heather Hart, Melissa Jacobs, Jamie King, Kiley McCloskey, Sara Patterson, Stephanie Smith, Ashley Spencer, Monica Tardiff, Ashley Bean, and Jillian Dougherty.

The Witches improved enough to outdistance a solid Bangor squad by 51/4 points in spite of the Rams posting their best scores in years (81.25 twice).

“It’s better than what we’ve done in all our other competitions, so we’re pretty happy,” said Bangor coach Stephanie Crane.

The teams joining Brewer and Bangor at the state meet in Augusta on Feb. 9 are third-place Gardiner (78.25) and fourth-place Oxford Hills of South Paris (76.25).

Class B – The head coach and uniforms may have changed, but the expectations haven’t. Old Town won its second East crown in three years, but had to sweat it out as they finished tied with Houlton at 83.5 points apiece.

Then came the unfortunate, erroneous announcement declaring the Shiretowners winners, followed a minute later by the announcement of a correction.

“It never should have happened. It’s a mistake, but I feel bad something like that happened,” said OT rookie head coach Kate Loveless.

“I know I was very emotional. I cried, so I can’t imagine how Houlton felt,” said Indians co-captain Kailee Bradstreet. “If I was crying after we found out we won, then they must be totally devastated. That’s the worst thing that could ever happen.”

The Shires’ coaches and team members took things in stride, but their disappointment was evident.

They weren’t alone. After notching the third-highest score of the prelims, Rockland was bounced out of the final four. But then someone noticed a mistake.

“What happened was they added Rockland’s score wrong, so Rockland technically tied with John Bapst for third,” said Caribou coach Erica Gove, whose Vikings benefited from the error by moving into fourth. “The only reason we found out was our choreographer talked to Rockland and they were going crazy about the mistake. The computer didn’t add 10 points to their score.”

After the mistake was corrected, Rockland and Bapst were tied at 75.75. The Tigers moved ahead of Bapst by a half-point, again via the second tiebreaker (the first is point deductions and in both cases, none of the teams had any) and Caribou (74.0) dropped to fifth.

Due to the mistake’s unique nature, cheering committee members voted to send Caribou to states along with the other four teams.

“It was so weird,” said Indians co-captain Cassandra Madden. “We were happy with second because we thought we did our best on the floor, and then we found out it was a mistake and we were really first and it was just amazing. Everybody was so excited.”

The Indians’ other members are Rachel Clukey, Sasha Cook-Coghill, Jeni Cunningham, Valerie Dionne, Jessica Ford, Meghann Foster, Stacy Goodspeed, Kimberly Hamel, Ashley Hogan, Heather Lonko, Angela Madden, Cheri McDonald, Miranda Parsons, Whitney Randall, Amanda Shields, and Avril Williams.

Class C – Things were much simpler Saturday afternoon as Orono’s routine scored the Red Riots 72.25 points and a five-point edge on runner-up Washington Academy of East Machias.

“It’s incredible,” said junior co-captain Sarah Carlisle. “Last year we didn’t even make call-backs and it was the first year of [high school] cheering ever for us.”

The team with no seniors broke the bank with a routine built around a “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” theme featuring songs about wealth and money. Rookie head coach Suzanne Lewis got into the act by pinning a dollar bill to her blouse. A lucky bill?

“It is today, yes. I’ll have the same exact one on in two weeks,” said Lewis, whose team was also the only one to incorporate handstands into their routine.

“After being second at PVCs, people are starting to believe,” said junior co-captain Sarah Scott. “Early on, we were hoping just to make call-backs at PVCs or Easterns and maybe get to states. It’s been a shock. We didn’t know our routine would be this good.”

Central of Corinth (67.0) and Sumner of East Sullivan (66.75) also move on to states.

The rest of the Riots are Nicole Barclay, Michelle Benoit, Meagan Carter, Julia Duncan, Marcel Gallagher, Amaris Goodreau, Emily Gordon, Ashley Kunkel, Nadia Munson, Stacy Scott, Chelsea Sherman, and Karina Zegpi.

Class D – Call it a return to glory for a program that won one Class D and three C state titles from 1987 through 1990.

“We’ve been state runners-up the last two years,” said fourth-year Central Aroostook coach Sami Jo Pryor. “Hopefully we’re re-establishing ourselves.”

The Panthers edged regional rival Fort Fairfield by a half point in the combined East-West regional meet, 67.5 to 67.

“We knew they were strong again and we pretty much expected them to be our big competition,” Angie Brewer and Jordan Bell, two of seven senior captains, said almost in unison. “It’s a big relief because we worked so hard.”

The other Panthers include Krista Brown-Elian, April Clockedile, Ashley Clockedile, Ericah Cheney, Deidre Cushman, Jennifer Donahue, Ashley Gray, Jennifer Hallett, Danielle Larrabee, Lindsey Kinney, and Angel Rideout.

Six teams will join the Panthers and Tigers at states because a shortage of West D cheering teams forced officials to combine the regionals. The other six, from third to eighth place, are Bangor Christian, Deer Isle-Stonington, Jonesport-Beals, Machias, Woodland and Rangeley.