Tigers tip Old Town, Houlton in Class B; Riots defend ‘C’ crow

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BANGOR – With less than two points separating the top four teams headed into the final round of the Eastern Maine Class B cheerleading championships Saturday, the Rockland Tigers had a laundry list of things they had to do in order to hold off Houlton.

“We had to do a lot of facials, be really spirited, make everything sharp, hit our stunts, just do our best,” said Rockland senior Jaime Fogg.

So did the Tigers hit their routine?

“They just nailed it,” said Mary Sidelinger, who coaches the Tigers along with Rachel Collamore. “Almost nothing went wrong that time.”

After years of performing well at the conference level, Rockland finally broke through at the regional level. The Tigers edged defending champion Old Town for their first EM title, scoring 781/4 points in the final round to earn a berth in the Feb. 8 state championship.

Rockland had a slim lead after the first round and never relinquished the advantage. The Indians earned runner-up honors with 77 points, while Houlton recorded a 763/4 and John Bapst of Bangor had a 761/2.

In the Class C competition, defending EM champion Orono came from behind to score 70.25 points in the final round for its second straight regional title. Washington Academy of East Machias, which had a 1/4-point lead going into the finals, was second with 69.25.

Sumner of East Sullivan was third with 61.75 points and Penobscot Valley of Howland took fourth with a 60.25.

The top four teams in each competition advance to the state championships at the Bangor Auditorium.

Each team at the competitions performed its routine once in the first round. The top 50 percent of the teams were called back to go through the routine in the final round.

There were less than two points separating the top four places in the Class B meet and Clark Rafford, a Maine Principals’ Association cheerleading committee member, told the crowd that the final Class B scores were the closest he’d seen in six years of attending the competition.

The scores were also close after the preliminary round, and the Tigers knew they needed a clean routine to hold off Houlton, which was just one point behind going into the finals.

Rockland may have had an edge in the overall appeal category because of its male members. The Tigers do single basing, which is a stunt with a single boy holding up a girl over his head. There’s no difficulty advantage, but it’s a move that wasn’t seen in the rest of the competition.

“We get so excited when we hit those,” Fogg said.

Rockland’s team members are Fogg, Beth Allen, Lindsey Appleby, Heather Brown, Charissa Cayouette, Ryan Curtin, Sean Curtin, Trevor Davis, Dianne Grade, Matthew Haj, Melissa Leiter, Stacia Matthews, Jesse Passmore, Bri Thiverge and alternates Gretchen Appleby, Kasey Bowie and Dean Hale.

Old Town, which won this competition last year, performed a cleaner routine in the final round after a fall during the first round, and that bumped the Indians from fourth place to runner-up.

Houlton, the defending state champion, has been dealing with injuries and didn’t attend last week’s Penobscot Valley Conference Classes A-B meet. So finishing third Saturday was an accomplishment for the young Shiretowners.

“We missed that experience. It’s hard to pass up,” coach Julie Dunn-Brown said. “We’ve had a very long season with injuries and they’re a young team. We’re just thrilled to even be top four.”

John Bapst qualified for the state championships for the second year in a row after several seasons of not making it that far.

“It’s been an ongoing process for the last five years to get to where we are now,” said coach Denise Sullivan.

In the Class C meet, the Red Riots turned the Auditorium into their own personal jungle with a charming animal-themed routine. Instead of the usual pom-poms to mark spots on the mat, Orono used stuffed animals. The Riots wore animal-print hair ribbons in their hair.

“It just makes it so much more fun when you have something to go with,” said tri-captain Sarah Carlisle.

Those touches were sweet, but the judges couldn’t overlook the Riots’ wealth of tumbling and solid one-legged stunts. Orono didn’t do anything too fancy, but the team – which two weeks ago won the PVC Classes C-D title – did do everything cleanly in the second round after a fall in the first round.

“It’s all mental,” said Sarah Scott, who along with Michelle Benoit are the other captains. “It was just energy and making sure we stuck everything. It wasn’t an option to have it not go perfect.”

The rest of the Orono team members are Katie Amato, Laura Benoit, Emily Brooks, Whitney Dwyer, Tracy Dyment, Emily Gordon, Amans Goudreau, Ashley Kunkel, Lyndsay Leger, Nadia Munson, Stacy Scott, Chelsea Sherman, Krysta Thurston and Erin Wheklen.

The Raiders performed clean routines both times through and had twisting dismounts out of their stunts where the Riots didn’t. But Orono had one more one-legged stunts and tumblers than WA, and those little points can add up.

“It was close,” Washington Academy coach Laurie Schoppee said. “They have half-team tumbling where we only had a quarter of the team, so that’s a point right there. It was hard. … We’ll probably have to try to add some difficulty somewhere, work on [the routine] being clean, make the tumbling a little more solid.”

The battle for the fourth and final berth to states came down to Central of Corinth and the Howlers, who were behind by 3/4 of a point going into the finals. The Red Devils had a few falls in their routine, so Penobscot Valley earned the last spot.