At Saturday’s Eastern Maine Class D cheering championships, Fort Fairfield, which took to the mat right after the victorious Central Aroostook Panthers, scored 88.5 points to edge Bangor Christian by one-tenth of a point for second place in thecompetition.
The team will next compete in the state championship Feb. 7.
“We did really well,” said Fort Fairfield coach Rachel Emery. “It was just a matter of them coming out and doing what they were taught to do, and if they went clean, they were going to be just fine.
“I didn’t know we were going to do that well,” she said.
The runner-up finish marked the continuation of a cheering resurgence at Fort Fairfield, which last won a state crown in 2007 — when Emery was part of the team.
Fort Fairfield did not qualify for states again until last winter, when it placed seventh at regionals and sixth at the state meet after Emery became the Tigers’ new coach.
A broken nose suffered by one of Fort’s team members two weeks ago required some modification of the team’s routine.
“What we came up with at [the Aroostook County meet in Caribou last week] was kind of a hodgepodge because of the broken nose that we had,” said Emery. “When we came back the next Saturday, we practiced for what seemed like forever and hammered out what the routine should have been for Caribou, but what we did today was really 50 percent new.”
Team members for Fort Fairfield are Kasidie Chapman, Marisa Clark, Meaghan Everitt, Makaila Flanagan, Gracie Griffeth, Kailanny Hernandez-Loprena, Ashley Levesque, Julian McKenney, Branden Nichols, Sarah Owens, Stephanie Parady, Kalena Pearce, Alyssa Poitras, Steven Wentworth, Paige Worcester and Gabrielle Wortman.
In Class B, Hermon totaled 141 points to outdistance Ellsworth, which finished second at 131.6.
Caribou finished out of the top five in the 14-school field to miss qualifying for the state championships.
