Brewer wins its first state title Witches rally in final

BANGOR – The Brewer cheerleading team sat in a circle, just like three of the four Class A squads waiting to hear who had won the state championship Monday night at the Bangor Auditorium.

From the outside looking in, the Witches calmly chatted and laughed occasionally. But the things inside the circle were anything but calm.

“Relaxed? We were anything but relaxed,” senior Kristin Wood with a laugh.

“We were sitting there saying, girls, no matter what, we hit it the best we could hit it and we controlled the part we could control,” senior Courtney Wright added. “It’s up to the judges now.”

Brewer was hardly calm during its routine, too, especially after they nailed a key stretch in which they had faltered in the first round.

But from the outside in, again, the Witches looked to be in control.

And they were – not only of their routine, but as it turned out, the whole competition.

Brewer fought through a five-point deduction in their first-round routine to come back in the finals and win the Class A state championship, scoring 163.7 points to became the first school north of Gardiner to win a Class A state title.

“These kids worked really hard and I have true leaders on this team with the seniors,” said Brewer coach Kristie Reed, who is in her eighth season. “They all pushed themselves, and I think it’s huge for a program but also huge for me because I wanted it for them.”

Brewer is the first Class A team from the Penobscot Valley Conference or Big East Conference to win the state crown. Gardiner, which won in 1992, was previously the northernmost Class A state champ.

“This means everything to us,” Brewer senior Ali Caron said. “We’re just so happy and so proud of each other.”

The Witches were just three-tenths of a point better than runner-up Biddeford, which scored a 163.4 despite leading after the first round.

Edward Little of Auburn was third with a 162.2 and Marshwood of South Berwick scored a 161.3 for fourth place.

Brewer, Biddeford and Edward Little all qualified for the New England championships, which will be held March 17 in New Hampshire.

Lewiston, the 2006 state champ, wasn’t called back to the final round because the Blue Devils also had five points deducted.

Both Lewiston and Brewer had the same deduction – in both cases a flyer landed on her side after a twisting dismount – but the Witches’ 155.9 was still enough to make it to the finals in fourth place.

Even though their doubles landed without problem in the finals, the Witches were still nervous until the very end of their routine.

Brewer, which performs to a medley of music by the rock group Queen, had a clean routine in the finals with no deductions on its double-twisting dismounts, which was where the five points were deducted in the first round.

Even though the doubles had gone well, the Witches remained on edge.

“It’s not over until we’re on our backs and we say, ‘Witches,'” Wood said of the routine’s finale.

The Witches’ doubles follow a complicated series of four stunt groups that are held still by the bases while the flyers transition between stunts – a hallmark of Brewer’s routine this season. Reed’s team also had the majority of its team tumbling, which is a must for Class A teams, along with three toe-touch basket tosses that sent flyers around 20 feet into the air.

Brewer didn’t make any changes after the Jan. 27 Eastern Maine final, which it won with a 154.2. In their first competition of the season, the Jan. 13 PVC meet, the Witches averaged a 141.8. The state meet represents a huge scoring jump.

“We cleaned it up,” Wright said of the time between the regional meet and Monday’s states. “We added some little things but nothing major. The first week of practice after Easterns, tensions were high, we had an off-weekend in between, and we just said we needed to enjoy the moment.”

The Witches finished in third place at the 2006 state competition.

The state competition for Classes A and D was scheduled for Saturday but was postponed until Monday because of a water main break near the Bangor Auditorium.

The rest of Brewer’s team includes includes Martina Bosse, Jessica Currier, Mackenzie DeGraff, Taylor DiFrederico, Tara Geaghan, Ashley Martin, Kayla Triplett, Jewels Watson, Kelly Cyr, Dominique DeFillip, Jenna Duran, Alicia Hallahan, Alycia Stevens, Alexa Washburn, Kasey Lingley and Ashley Smith.