This year, Amy Harrison decided to take it all off.

A senior on the MDI swim team, Harrison shaved her head before Saturday’s Class B state championship meet. She had been tempted to do it in the past, but decided in a moment to go bald.

“I was going to do it last year because the boys always do it but I decided to do it this year,” said Harrison, who placed eighth in the 100-yard butterfly and 13th in the 100 breaststroke in the meet at the University of Maine’s Wallace Pool. “I’m just kind of spontaneous and I wanted a change. I kind of like the idea of doing whatever I want and not caring what people think.”

Teams shave before big meets as a way to feel slicker in the water. Some schools make a tradition out of it – the MDI boys grow long enough hair to style it into mohawks for the Penobscot Valley Conference championship meet a week before states, then shave it all off. The Bangor boys have dyed their hair blond for PVCs and then gone bald for states.

Harrison didn’t just throw away her hair. She donated what she shaved off, about 13 inches, to Locks of Love, a charity that collects human hair to make wigs for cancer patients.

WA scores in first state meet

Washington Academy of East Machias’ new swimming team had a fine debut at Class B girls states Saturday.

Sophomore Alice McBride scored all 17 of the Raiders points at UMaine’s Wallace Pool. She made it to the championship finals of the 100-yard breaststroke, finishing eighth with a time of 1 minute, 13.22 seconds, and was 11th overall in the 100 butterfly with a time of 1:08.65.

Rams show support of Witches

Could the old Bangor-Brewer rivalry be a thing of the past? It might just be, at least in cheerleading.

The Bangor cheerleaders decided if they couldn’t be in the Class A state championships, they might as well support Brewer, which went on to win the title at last week’s competition.

The Rams wore T-shirts supporting the Witches and sat in the Brewer fan section to cheer on their traditional cross-river rivals.

Bangor’s homemade T-shirts read, BHS – as in Bangor High School – loves BHS – which also stands for Brewer High School. Some of the T-shirts had “The Rams Love The Witches” written on them.

“We figured, with our controversy, they had our backs and fought for us,” said Bangor senior Maria Coffin. “We thought we’d return the favor. … We’ve always had a lot of respect for them but it’s been very competitive. Now we’re trying to break that barrier.”

Bangor finished seventh in the Eastern Maine Class A championship meet, one spot out of the top six that advance to states. The Rams claimed their scores were low because of a judge’s miscount of the number of tumblers in their routine. The school consulted with the MPA after the competition but the judge’s decision was final.

Brewer, which won the Eastern Maine Class A title as well as the Big East Class A and Penobscot Valley Conference Class A competitions this winter, edged Biddeford in the state finals.

“We’d rather see them win than anyone else,” said Kalee Gurshick, also a Bangor senior. “They totally deserved it. They beat Lewiston at regionals and we were really proud of them.”

The show of support prompted Brewer fans to thank the Bangor cheerleaders after the competition, and also led to a laudatory phone call from Maine Principals’ Association assistant executive director Larry LaBrie to Bangor athletic director Steve Vanidestine the day after states.

“I said, Larry, usually when you call it’s with bad news,” Vanidestine joked. “He said, no, this is a good thing.”