AUGUSTA — You watch sitcoms going back to the 1950s, and there’s the old joke about women hating to admit when they’re wrong. But Lawrence cheerleading coach Alicia Curtis was dead wrong, and she couldn’t have been happier about it.
On Monday night at the Augusta Civic Center, the Bulldogs had a couple mistakes in their routine, and Curtis was hoping they’d still have enough points to slide in to the sixth spot and advance to states. Instead, Lawrence finished third in Eastern A behind Lewiston and Bangor, earning a spot in the state championships.
Lewiston finished with 158.8 points, while Bangor came in at 149.6. Lawrence scored 133.1. The state championships are Feb. 7 at the Civic Center.
“While they didn’t hit some of the stunts, their enthusiasm and their energy — the performance part of the scoresheet — is what went up for us,” Curtis said. “I was hoping to get one of those state spots, but never expected third. Never.”
“We definitely had a tough week at practice, so we weren’t expecting to get that high,” Lawrence co-captain Emma Harrison said. “We had a hard time, but we’re definitely excited about getting this high up and going to states for the first time in about five years.”
Mt. Blue (110.9) finished 10th, while Cony (107.2) placed 11th. In Western B, Medomak Valley was the champion with 133.1 points, while Oak Hill took 11th place with a score of 86.1.
Although Curtis decided to take a difficult stunt out of the routine during warm-ups because the Bulldogs weren’t hitting it, it was clear Lawrence’s plan was a high-risk, high-reward strategy.
“We’ve been just below making it to states for quite a few years now,” Curtis said. “We know we need the difficulty in order to get there, so it’s kind of a risk you have to take if that’s your goal.”
It looked like the risk part would prevail when the Bulldogs dropped one of their “twin towers” early in the routine. But to their credit, the Lawrence cheerleaders shook that mistake off and kept moving forward.
“When we fell, I was upset,” Lawrence co-captain Paige Castonguay said. “But I thought, ‘You’ve just got to smile and push through it. It’s the last time we might be able to do this routine, so just strive for the best and smile.'”
“Once my stunt came down,” Lawrence co-captain Mikaela Wyman added, “I just looked at my stunt group, and I was like, ‘C’mon, ladies, we (got to) sell it.’ And that’s pretty much what we did. I’m so proud of my team.”
The Bulldogs appeared as stunned as Curtis when they were announced as the third-place team. But it ended up showing exactly why coaches tell their cheerleaders to keep going hard after mistakes.
“The goal is to always hit perfect and hit clean,” Curtis said, “but even with the couple of stunt issues that we had, I think the rest of the routine looked really good, and they did exactly what we asked them to do — keep the energy up the whole time.”
“I’m just really excited to go to states and show ’em what we got,” Lawrence co-captain Hannah Senior said. “We didn’t hit everything, and we definitely have a lot more in us that we can show off.”
Mt. Blue had its slip-up in the middle of the routine, but the rest of the performance was strong enough that the Cougars increased their score by 3.7 points after scoring 107.2 at the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference Class A competition.
“I think that they did a great job,” Mt. Blue coach Holly Gould said. “They started out strong, had that bobble in the middle, and finished strong. That’s all I can ask of them.”
Cony had a relatively safe routine, but executed it brilliantly. The Rams boosted their KVAC score of 93.5 by nearly 14 points.
“We came here mainly with the goal of just improvement,” Cony coach Angela Hinkley said. “Every competition is just improvement. We want to hit it better, harder, stronger, faster, the whole nine yards, with more spirit. We’re not here to win. We’re definitely here to beat our last performance.”
Oak Hill improved over its Mountain Valley Conference showing, but the Raiders had only seven cheerleaders in their routine, and that was definitely a drawback.
“(I’m) very pleased with how they performed,” Oak Hill coach Louise Gauthier said. “We’re a very young team. We’re rebuilding. More girls is our goal for next year. We do have a lot of interest, so one step at a time. Definitely, they’ve accomplished exactly what we set out to do this year.”
Matt DiFilippo — 861-9243
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