Hermon overcomes adversity, posts win

BANGOR – The day couldn’t have started out any worse for the Hermon cheerleading team. But by the end of Saturday’s Eastern Maine Class B championships at the Bangor Auditorium, things couldn’t have been any sweeter.

The Hawks suffered a myriad of problems, from a late bus to injuries during warmups – but still managed to win the school’s first regional cheerleading title.

Hermon, a program which made its first appearance ever at states last year, scored 133.1 points to edge perennial power Rockland by 1.1 points. Both squads advance to the Feb. 12 state competition, along with third-place Ellsworth, which scored 131.3 points. The top six teams head to states, which means Caribou (128.7), John Bapst of Bangor (123.6), and Waterville (121.2) also advance.

There were no callbacks, so each team had only one chance to impress the judges.

Hermon hadn’t advanced to the finals of a cheerleading competition yet this season. But the Hawks pulled it together Saturday.

“It just came to us out of nowhere this week,” said Hermon cheerleader Krista Helms. “Everyone got comfortable with it.”

Hermon picked up a lot of difficulty in tumbling, with eight of 12 team members getting into the act in the 1980s-themed routine. The goal was to have more than half of the cheerleaders doing tumbling, which can mean big-time points from the judges.

“We wanted to beat everyone in tumbling because we thought that would put us up higher,” said Lauren Kimball, one of the more experienced tumblers.

The Hawks also had a double-twisting dismount on a toss early in the routine, the only team to incorporate the difficult move.

That Hermon pulled everything together was amazing considering all the trouble the team went through early. The girls were locked out of the school Saturday morning and the school bus was late getting the Hawks to the competition.

During practice, team member Heather Brady was hit on the nose, causing a nosebleed. Coach Lisa Pratt tried another girl in her place, but after Brady’s nose was packed and stopped bleeding, she performed anyway.

And minutes before the routine, a cheerleader from another school got sick and threw up on two Hermon girls. They quickly cleaned up and went on to perform.

“If there’s any team that deserves this, it’s this one,” said Pratt, who is in her fifth year coaching the varsity. “It was stressful.”

The rest of the Hermon team is made up of Ashley Andrews, Jessica Andrews, Carey Bell, Danielle Brayley, Ashley Clark, Kristi Emery, Ashley Fairbanks, Monica Gallant, Sarah Gebert, Meagan Keith, Samantha Nightengale, Kelsey Petrello, and Nicole Vincent.

First-year Rockland coach Becky Howard said the Tigers added another one-legged stunt and included a back handspring and a tuck in the weeks before the competition and could add another tuck to the tumbling section.

But the most important thing for Howard is upping the energy level.

“I think that’s the one thing we’re going to work on in the next couple of days,” she said. “… They did a really good job and I was really proud of them for that.”