Bapst celebrates 1st cheering title Crusaders save best routine for last

BANGOR – Two weeks ago, the members of John Bapst Memorial High School’s cheerleading team were dejected and frustrated. Saturday, the Crusaders were both elated and celebrated.

Fourteen days after suffering through a miscue-plagued routine that left them in fifth place at the Eastern Maine Class B regional championship, a spot barely good enough to get them into states, the Crusaders are savoring the program’s first state championship.

“We’ve never won anything in our four years here,” said Sarah McDonald, one of four senior captains. “I think everyone kind of counted us out after regionals, so I guess that way, there wasn’t a lot of pressure on us, but we put pressure on ourselves.”

So did head coach Jen Babcock, who knew her team was capable of a much cleaner and much more pointworthy routine.

Babcock’s belief was validated Saturday afternoon as the Crusaders wowed the judges with a fairly complex and tightly orchestrated routine. That garnered them a score of 140.4 and an 8.4-point lead in the preliminary round and cemented their first-ever state cheering title with a 141.3 in the finals.

“We had some really tough competition today and they really hit their routine perfectly. I couldn’t have asked for more,” Babcock said. “We had a couple of minor changes, but basically the girls just had to hit their routine more tightly. They stayed focused and motivated, they worked hard, and they really sold it today.”

In the Class C competition, St. Dominic of Lewiston won its fifth state crown in the last seven years with strong performances in the prelims and finals. The Saints scored a 146.4 in the final round to edge 2004 Class B state champ Houlton by 2.3 points.

Before Saturday’s Class B performances, the best competition score Bapst had managed this season was 129 points.

But even with an error-free routine that netted five points that were deducted for mistakes at regionals, there were still another seven on top of that. What made the difference?

“We had a pretty unique routine from everyone else, like our skater pyramid. And our formation changes were different, the way we had our tumblers come out and change our levels,” said senior Josie Donaher. “But as far as why we stopped struggling, I don’t even know.

“One day it just clicked after regionals and it never left us. We just … pulled it off.”

“We” includes McDonald, Donaher, Jen Reese, Sarah Lyon, Kim Robertson, Katie Saucier, Sheila Toomey, Naomi Freeman, Ashlee Simpson, Elizabeth Wright, Brittany Hill, Audrey Lawrence, Kelly Allen, Kaili Davis, Katie Black and Megan McBurnie.

The state competition uses the two-round (callback) system, but the regionals use a one-shot single-round format.

“I like two rounds better because you get a chance to prove it,” McDonald said. “It feels better when you can do it twice.”

In the C meet, Houlton pulled away from Washington Academy after a tight prelim battle, but couldn’t muster enough points to move past the Saints. Still, that was enough for Shiretowners coach Julie Dunn-Brown.

“These girls have exceeded my expectations tenfold. Halfway through the season, I wasn’t even sure if we were going to go,” she said. “This is an extremely young team. I lost eight girls – half a squad – from last year, so we had to work from the ground up.”

Aside from battling numerous injuries including broken thumbs, knee sprains and even broken arms, the Shires had to grow up in a hurry.

“It’s just been constant. We even had an injury yesterday that made me think I’d have to rearrange people, but she was able to compete today,” Dunn-Brown said. “Today is the first day I’ve seen our pyramid work well, seriously.”