Three teams finished within 1.25 points of each other, but it was Sacred Hearts climbing to the top of the ladder for the third year in a row Saturday at the Zippy’s/HHSAA Cheerleading State Championships at Blaisdell Arena.

Once again, the Lancers won the medium (11 or fewer athletes) division. They accrued 355.75 points from the judges to beat out Radford and Moanalua, who scored 354.50 points each. Na Menehune took second place over the Rams by virtue of a tiebreaker.

In the large division (12 or more athletes), Baldwin topped Mililani by 11.25 points for the koa trophy, scoring 346.50. Only two squads competed in the large category.

>> Click here to see photos of the HHSAA state cheerleading championships.

The Bears’ championship was the third for the island of Maui and fifth for a neighbor island team. Kamehameha-Maui earned medium titles in 2013 and 2014. Waimea, which placed fourth in the medium division Saturday, won medium state titles in ’11 and ’12 for the Kauai Interscholastic Federation.

Following the last routine, all of the competing teams waited on the Blaisdell floor for more than a half-hour while scores were tabulated. To pass the time, they danced to “Ayy Ladies” by Travis Porter. But it was not only ladies doing the dancing. Many schools had at least one boy on their team, and one group of all boys from the High Intensity Athletics club gave an exhibition performance.

“We’re so blessed to get this,” said Sacred Hearts coach Cadey Vakauta, who did not hold back her tears while the first few dozen people came up to congratulate her. “To get this three-peat, it’s all because of the man above. This is different from other sports. You get two minutes and 30 seconds and once you mess up, it’s over. I was really worried watching all these great teams. It was definitely a close competition.”

The Lancers pulled through despite a mistake on a stunt.

“We had to get our head in the game, stay focused, step by step, stay humble, stay confident,” Sacred Hearts junior Cayla Cabanban said. “Something went wrong, but it wasn’t over. We picked up our faces and rallied until we stepped off that mat. I think we had that little extra showmanship and connected with the crowd.”

The other Lancers champions are Lexy Freitas, Kayla Oka, Alissa De Smet, Zandrina Cambra, Jacelyn Tanuvasa, Makenna Ching, Koko Tanaka and Andromeda Tong.

The Bears’ title under coach Kealii Molina was a long time in the making.

“We tried so hard my freshman year when we were second, my sophomore year when we were third, and junior year when we were second again,” Baldwin senior Madison Murayama said. “We could only dream of what this feeling would be like. We have so much of the most amazing athletes in this program. Knowing the fight and drive that they all had, it’s amazing to put it all together on the floor.”

Baldwin’s other champs are Chelsie Constantino, Christina Damore, Karah Dean, Sasha Kamaka, Brandi Kamalani, Lea Kashiwamura, Koalii Kenui, Donnelle Leandro, Melina Perez, Teija Sniffen, Makenna Sumibcay, Hilalia Villanueva Langi and Maile Wickes.