Fort Fairfield captures 2nd straight state crown

BANGOR – About the only thing Fort Fairfield’s cheerleading team did wrong the entire night was drop part of the trophy on the Bangor Auditorium’s hardwood court.

The Fort Fairfield Tigers won their second straight Class D state championship at Monday night’s competition by executing a nearly flawless routine emphasizing clean stunts and dance moves while incorporating more tumbling.

“We tried to go clean every round we performed this year and we tried to be non-stop with no downtime in the routine,” said Tigers coach Kelly Bubar, who is retiring after coaching three state championship squads in the last five years. “We may not have had the advanced stunting, but we had really good tumbling and a very solid routine.”

Bubar’s Tigers won in relatively comfortable fashion with a finalround score of 122 points – 7.9 points better than the state runner-up Bangor Christian Patriots (114.1).

“I’ve been coaching 15 or 16 years and honestly, it feels like it to me,” Bubar said with a laugh. “The only reason I did coach this year was I told them if they won the state title last year, I’d coach. I haven’t made that mistake again.”

While Bubar was ending her coaching career on a high note, Bangor Christian coach Brittany Wilson was starting hers on one. The rookie coach couldn’t have been much happier with her team’s effort.

“This was the best performance this group’s ever had,” said Wilson, who was part of a co-state championship team and a state runner-up squad when she was a Bangor Christian cheerleader. “We really wanted to work on our stunting this year because that’s been a struggle in the past.

“We certainly peaked at the right time.”

Central Aroostook of Mars Hill was third with 113.3 points and Machias fourth with 98.8.

Deer Isle-Stonington also qualified for states competition, but didn’t compete or attend Monday’s meet because of “ineligible team members,” according to cheerleading committee chairman Fred Boyd.

Despite the experience of having won Eastern and state titles last year, and having nine seniors to go with just six newcomers on its 20-member squad, the Tigers didn’t leave anything to chance.

“It’s harder to win it again because there’s so much pressure,” said senior Rachel Worcester. “Everybody expects the best from you again, so you have to work just as hard to get back. You have to bring your best every year because anything can happen.”

Especially when your team has to rely more on technical aspects to make up for a lack of more pointworthy stunts.

“When we started the season, I didn’t have one stunting group intact from last year,” Bubar explained. “So we weren’t twisting or tossing, we were just trying to put up clean looking lines and make it very showy everywhere else to build off our strengths.”

Senior Josh Barnes played a big part in that strategy as he choreographed the Tigers’ routine.

“This year we incorporated full team tumbling, a more difficult dance part of the routine, and cleaner stunts,” said Barnes, whose only gaffe came when he dropped one of the figurines on the team title trophy during the presentation.

“It was a little loose, but I’ll own up to that one,” he said.

The rest of Fort Fairfield’s team includes Page Beaulieu, Keiza Bernaiche, Gabrielle Bowker, Kylie Chambers, Melissa Clark, Simona Cremer, Jennifer Dufour, Janelle Duncan, Katelyn Enman, Mallory Ferrier, Sarah Hebert, Alyssa Kilcollins, Stephanie McIntosh, Ashley McNally, Kellie Osgood, Marcus Spear, Elizabeth Tuck, and Taylor Turner.

Monday’s Class A and D championships were postponed from Saturday after a broken water main on Buck Street shut down the Bangor Auditorium.