BANGOR – A year ago, 67 points was a maddening half-point short of winning the first regional title in four years for Fort Fairfield’s cheerleading squad.

Saturday night, 67 points were more than enough as the Tigers walked off the Bangor Auditorium floor with a comfortable 5.25-point margin over runner-up, chief rival, and defending regional and state champ Central Aroostook of Mars Hill at the Class D East-West regional finals.

“We’re rivals with them and we always have been,” said Tigers senior Mia McDonald. “They lost a lot of seniors and we only lost one. We have two to three stunting groups to their one and we can really max out our points that way.”

Despite losing two-thirds of last year’s Class D state title team and fielding a team half the normal size, the Panthers gave their rivals a run for their money. The seven-member squad (six other members did not compete due to inexperience) scored 62.5 points in the prelims to keep the heat on the Tigers, who scored 63.5.

“We’re so excited because we lost eight girls from last year’s team and we only had three girls back with experience. We started completely from scratch almost,” said CAHS coach Sammi Allen. “We were hoping to be in the top four, but this is a surprise.”

Due to the low number of teams in Western Maine, the regionals are a combined competition in Class D with three teams from the West joining the 10 from Eastern Maine. The top eight teams in Saturday’s regional finals move on to the state finals in Bangor Feb. 8.

Those teams, in order after Fort Fairfield and Central Aroostook, are Deer Isle-Stonington (53.25 points), Machias (52.5), Lee Academy (50.25), Woodland (47.50), Jonesport-Beals (44.75), and Rangeley (41.75).

After finishing second, eighth, and fifth in the last three regional meets, the Tigers feel like they have a shot at their first state title.

“We just work hard and I think we have more confidence with a big squad this year … And we have fun,” said Tim Levesque, one of two boys and four seniors on the squad.

The rest of the team roster includes Lacey Bernier, Lana Bishop, Courtney Burns, Caelieh Clemons, Tiffany Davenport, Lacey Dewitt, Brand Egan, Courtney Gould, Brittney Guiou, Monica Harris, Danielle Langley, Shonda McLaughlin, Becky Nersessian, Matt Oakes, Amanda Smith, Aimee Tibbetts, and Jennifer Wortman.

Fort Fairfield coach Kelly Bubar altered her approach this year and tried to keep things simple for the young team.

“We didn’t focus so much on the stunts. We focused on the other things, not necessarily freebies, but the more fundamental stuff like voice and motion … technique,” Bubar explained. “We also focused on the things we do well and try to do them better.”

As 908 fans looked on, the Tigers edged the Panthers with quality and quantity. The duel featured the only two teams executing “scorpion” lifts and the Tigers had one of the few teams with tumblers.