In line with its titanic tradition this decade, Lewiston cheerleading was dead, solid perfect this season, and a foregone conclusion as the Sun Journal’s team of the year.
The Blue Devils won everything else, after all, storming to championships at the conference, regional, state and New England levels.
No other team has taken home the KVAC title since Lewiston latched onto it in 2009. The Blue Devils were getting accustomed to new coach Lysa Laverdiere and a demanding routine at that point in January, but they still cruised to victory by more than seven points over runner-up Oxford Hills.
“We had a few flaws, but I think we were together as a team,” senior Sierra Melanson said after the performance. “That’s what we have to do to win.”
Five days later on the same Augusta Civic Center mat, Lewiston turned away a spirited challenge from Bangor to win a Class A North competition that has become an annual battle for second.
“We added a few more things,” Laverdiere warned the competition, “and we still have a couple more tricks up our sleeve that we are saving for the state championship.”
That performance at Cross Insurance Center in Bangor arguably was Lewiston’s most convincing triumph of the winter. The Devils nudged above 90 points on a scale of 100 to collect their fifth Class A championship in six years.
“The energy from the crowd was just blowing up,” Lewiston junior Kaitlyn Beckwith said after the trophy presentation. “Probably one of the best experiences I’ve felt in my life.”
With the addition of a boy, Nicholas Roy, to the team, Lewiston was reassigned to a co-ed division at the New England Interscholastic Spirit Championships in Lawrence, Mass., on March 19.
That didn’t deny the Devils their fourth title in five years at the six-state showcase.
“We didn’t pay attention to (the unfamiliar competition),” senior Olivia Bergeron said. “It was kind of like, ‘Different year, different coach, different division,’ and it all came together.”
As usual, for the model program in the state.
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