BANGOR – Old Town continued its run, Brewer came up just short, Hampden righted itself and Bangor took a step back at the third Big East Conference cheerleading championships Saturday at Red Barry Gymnasium.

The Class B Indians put on another fine cheerleading performance after winning last week’s Penobscot Valley Conference championships, this time scoring 76 points out of a possible 100 to take the Big East title.

Brewer, the PVC runner-up, claimed second place again with 68 points. Hampden Academy and John Bapst of Bangor were third and fourth with 65 and 63 points, respectively. Neither Hampden nor John Bapst made the final round last week.

About 650 spectators turned out to watch the seven teams compete for the title (Caribou was the only Big East team that did not compete). Four squads were called back for the final round.

Bangor, the host team and third-place finisher at PVCs, scored 58 points in the preliminary round – not enough to make an appearance in the finals. The Rams faltered at the end of their routine when one of their final stunts fell.

Presque Isle and Nokomis of Newport also did not make it to the final.

Old Town, meanwhile, performed another near-flawless routine with synchronized movements, clean stunts and loud cheering in defense of its 2000 Big East title. It’s a good sign for the Indians, who are hoping to defend their 2000 regional and state titles starting with Jan. 27’s Eastern Maine meet.

Missy Dorr and Erica Perry, Old Town’s only seniors, said the Indians worked in practice this week on staying still during stunts and creating more advanced dismounts for their fliers.

“When you go up in a stunt, just making sure you don’t move a muscle and you stick it. If you’re wobbly then it takes points off,” Dorr said.

Their toughest competition next week will likely come from Rockland, which won the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference title, and John Bapst.

Old Town’s team members are Kailee Bradstreet, Dorr, Meghann Foster, Courtney Gibbs, Stacy Goodspeed, Kim Hamel, Ashley Hogan, Heather Lonko, Angela Madden, Cassie Madden, Cheri McDonald, Miranda Parsons, Perry, Amanda Shields, Rachel Spinney, Avril Williams, and alternates Jeni Cunningham, Val Dionne, Wendy Dorr and Jessie Ford.

Coach Kristie Reed’s Witches had a few bobbles in their stunts and some lifts that got off the ground late, but Brewer was as solid as ever, and got impressive height on its dismounts.

The Witches will take their consecutive runner-up finishes into the Eastern Maine Class A meet next week, where they will have to face KVAC champ Gardiner, which took Eastern Maine last year.

“A couple of stunts were shaky,” Brewer senior Erin Knowles said. “We’ll probably work on those a lot and make them hit.”

Knowles’ teammates are Ashley Bean, Christina Bush, Leah Cameron, Erica Commeau, Angela DeBeck, Samantha Floyd, Riley Godley, Amanda Hamm, Heather Hart, Jamei King, Lauren Meehan, Lauren Parker, Sara Patterson, Jessica Ryerson, Monica Tardiff, Natasha Worcester and alternate Margo Relford.

Hampden, the 1999 Big East winner, dropped a stunt at PVCs last week, a mandatory 10-point deduction which knocked the Broncos out of contention. They were much cleaner Saturday.

“The routine was pretty much the same but we had a girl miss a tumbling pass and a girl who fell on the floor [last week],” Hampden coach Nancy Raymond said.

The Broncos continue to delight the crowd with their “scorpion” stunt in which three flyers hold their feet behind their heads in a crescent shape resembling a scorpion while the bases rotate, bring the flyers slowly down, stop, and lift them back up again.

It’s the toughest element in their routine, and one of the hardest in the competition. It’s also one of more original moves.

“It’s really, really difficult, but we want to push the envelope. We always want to make it more difficult than last year because some teams use the same stuff year in and year out,” Raymond said. “[The difficult part is] the actual turning them around and bringing them back up. Bringing them down is pretty easy. It’s getting the momentum from a dead stop and bringing them back up. I love that stunt and the girls do, too.”

The Eastern Maine competition for Classes A, B and C will be held at the Bangor Auditorium Saturday, with Class B and C starting at 10 a.m. and Class A beginning at 4:05 p.m.

Class D will compete at the Augusta Civic Center in a combined East-West competition (there are only four Western Maine teams and 13 Eastern Maine teams, so the two regions have been combined into one). Class D teams will perform at the same time as the Western Maine Class C squads, starting at 4″05 p.m.

Four teams in each class and each region advance to the state championship meet, to be held Feb. 10 at the Auditorium.