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ST. JOSEPH — The Buchanan competitive cheer team captured the Cheer by the Pier hosted by St. Joseph Monday night, while Dowagiac finished third.

Both teams scored new school records for points in a competition.

The Bucks finished with 673.92 points to win the competition, while Mattawan was second with 664.34 points and Dowagiac third with 660.24 points.

The old Dowagiac school record was 654 points, which was set last year.

“Our main goal for this year was to keep improving at each competition, and that is exactly what the girls have been doing,” said Dowagiac Coach Melissa Stanger. “After receiving our scores from our first meet this season, we realized that breaking that record was in reach. Now our goal is to break the record we just set. Coach [Virginia] Martynowicz and I couldn’t be more proud of the girls and their hard work.”

The host Bears finished fourth with 625.5 points and Lakeshore fifth with 624.2 points.

Buchanan led after each of the three rounds. In the opening round, the Bucks scored 209.7 points to edge Coloma, which had 208.2 points. After the second round, Buchanan had 402.32 points to take command of the competition as Mattawan moved into third place after scoring 182.54 points in the round for a total of 387.54 points.

Dowagiac had 392.04 points after two rounds.

Mattawan scored 276.8 points in the final round to leap over Dowagiac into second place. The Chieftains had a score of 268.2 points in the final round.

“We were very excited to win our division and overall,” said Buchanan Coach Nikki Coquillard. “While we had a few struggles in round 3, we earned our highest total score ever. My team keeps improving every competition and we are getting closer to hitting our goal of 700 points.”