It’s almost impossible to come out of nowhere to win your third consecutive New England championship, but that’s what Lewiston High School cheerleading did Saturday morning in Lawrence, Mass.
Relegated to fourth in February’s Class A state meet, Lewiston put together all the pieces of a challenging routine on the biggest stage and stunned one of the few programs in the northeast with a more prolific winning tradition than its own.
“We beat Pinkerton,” Lewiston coach Lynnette Morency exclaimed. “I think we’re going to get jackets that say that. Nobody does that.”
Pinkerton, a prep school from Derry, N.H., was seeking its seventh overall New England title in the eight-year history of the event, having won three in co-ed and three in the all-girls division.
The Astros competed in the co-ed class each of the past two years, meaning that the Blue Devils didn’t have to topple them in order to hoist the 2012 and 2013 hardware.
“I’m still in shock,” Lewiston co-captain Cassie Regner said. “That’s been our goal since June, to come down here and beat them.”
Lewiston not only won, it won big, 191.1 points to Pinkerton’s 184.8. Marshwood (180.2) gave Maine two of the top three finishers.
Biddeford, Marshwood and Bangor all beat Lewiston at the state meet, denying the Devils’ seniors a four-year sweep. Only the fact that Biddeford’s team has a male cheerleader, placing the Tigers in the co-ed division, gave the Devils the right to defend their title.
But they made the most of that reprieve.
“We took about a week-and-a-half off to come down from states,” co-captain Abby Madden said. “We practiced every other day for a couple of weeks and then every day this past week. This is a perfect way to go out as a senior with my team.”
Even with a significantly younger roster than in the past two title runs, Morency staunchly refused to make the Devils’ routine less demanding.
That persistence paid off Saturday. Lewiston made subtle changes to stunts, but otherwise it was the same show the Devils put on throughout the season.
“At New Englands, they really take the level of difficulty into consideration, and we thought we could take advantage of that,” Madden said. “We just wanted to give the perfect routine, and we felt that if we did that, we would at least be second.”
Although the Devils were never quite satisfied with their scores during the regular season, they dominated most of the way, winning their fifth consecutive KVAC title and fourth successive Class A East crown.
If the competition heard about the stumble at states, it wasn’t letting on.
“It was the usual pressure,” Regner said. “When we walk in, it’s still, ‘That’s Lewiston.’ People still look at you the same way.”
The fifth through second-place finishers were announced in order to heighten the drama.
Lewiston’s respect for Pinkerton is such that when the Astros were presented as runner-up, Morency was slow to piece together what it meant for the Devils.
“I looked at my daughter (Samantha) and our other coaches and said, ‘Did we really not finish in the top five?’ I didn’t know what was going on here,” Morency said.
It wasn’t long before everybody in blue assembled the puzzle of clues.
Then the real celebration started, and suddenly the coach pleaded for restraint. Samantha Morency is due to give birth to Lynnette’s first grandchild early next month.
“People are jumping up and down and screaming and my grandson is kicking all over the place, and all I’m thinking is, ‘You better not have that baby here!’” the coach said. “And after all that I don’t even know what to say. We beat Pinkerton. It feels like they’ve won 15 years in a row.”
Nine Maine schools competed Saturday, including three from the tri-county region.
Leavitt placed 13th in the Division 2 meet Saturday morning. Whitman-Hanson of Massachusetts was Division 2 champion.
Lisbon was set to perform later in the day in the Division 3 bracket.
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