Brewer strategy pays off Witches capture 2nd straight title

AUGUSTA – Kristie Reed’s strategy this season was a gamble. She gave her team a more difficult and complex program to learn in the hopes that the short-term losses would pay off in long-term gains.

The Brewer High School cheerleading coach’s bet finally paid off handsomely Saturday as the Witches won their second straight Eastern Maine Class A cheering title and third in the last four years after finishing sixth and third, respectively in their conference and regional competitions this season.

“The first two competitions are always rough for us, it seems, but I think the fact they lost the last couple competitions made it a pride issue,” said Reed. “This routine is a lot harder, but I wouldn’t put in something I didn’t think they could handle. It just took longer to build their confidence.”

The Witches’ high risk-high reward gambit made them the only squad at Easterns using four different stunt groups at the same time during their routine. The result was the best score of the day in any class: 151.4 points to runner-up and defending state champ Lewiston’s 147.5. The highest possible score is 175.

“We’ve actually had a really rough year and we are just so excited to finish second because we dealt with some ineligibility issues and basically changed our routine two days before our conference championship,” said Lewiston coach Deneka Fortier. “This week we had three practices to fix everything.”

Brewer and the Blue Devils head up the east contingent of six teams qualifying for the state championships on Feb. 12. The others are third-place Oxford Hills of South Paris (145.8), fourth-place Lawrence of Fairfield (140.8), fifth-place and 2005 Penobscot Valley Conference and Big East champ Bangor (137.6), and sixth-place Hampden Academy (135.6).

Brewer utilized a bevy of tumblers – 10 to be exact – among their 16 members to showcase physical ability, but also relied on the entire squad’s versatility and skill to enable itself to stretch the boundaries of their program a bit.

“We have four stunt groups, so in that sense, it’s a whole new ballgame,” Reed said. “There are a few teams in the west that do that, too, but I knew this team could do it. It’s a young team, but it has a lot of athletic ability.”

Holly Dumond and Jillian Dougherty, two of the team’s six seniors, said Saturday’s success stemmed from believing in the routine and trusting teammates to get the job done.

“We never considered getting rid of anything in our routine because we know we’re capable of doing what she gave us to do,” Dumond said. “After the choreographer came, we made a few changes, but I don’t think we’ve changed anything since, except we changed our dance routine today to get more difficulty and tempo.”

Brewer’s other cheerleaders are seniors Libbi Lingley, Kiley McCloskey – who fought hard to keep a stunt from unraveling – Erin Smith, and Ashley Spencer; juniors Brittany Borja, Erica Hart, and Stephanie Knowles; sophomores Ali Caron, Danielle King, Hannah Mahon, Hannah Taylor, and Kristin Wood; and freshmen Kelly Cyr, Dominique DeFillipp, Tara Geaghan, Alicia Hallahan, Ashley Martin, and Alycia Stevens.

It’s a good bet that Megan Burpee’s first season as Brewer’s choreographer won’t be her last.

“It was definitely new this year to not have fronts on the stunt groups, but we never had a problem with it,” Dougherty added. “From the first day, it just worked.”

Now Brewer’s taking solid aim at its first state title.

“It was just a matter of doing it and doing it well,” Dougherty said. “So now our motto is we don’t get nervous, we just get excited.”