About 10 seconds into their routine, as the Montville High School cheerleaders performed at the Eastern Connecticut Conference Division II championship competition late last month, all 15 cheerleaders lined up in a neat grid formation and flipped backwards simultaneously.

It was a moment that coach Theresa Quibble said felt victorious, even before she knew her team had won its third division championship in a row.

Quibble has been trying to get her whole team to be able to do a standing handspring for years, she said, and she said she thinks the move made a difference.

“It really scared our competition,” she said. “That’s definitely something to brag about.”

Quibble, a former Montville cheerleader herself, has been coaching her alma mater’s team for seven years.

“It take a village, it really does,” she said. That, plus “a lot of pep talks, and a lot of the girls really cheering each other on.

“They all helped each other,” she said.

Local schools are sorted into three divisions based on the schools’ size for the ECC championships. East Lyme won the Division I championship, and Montville won the Division II contest ahead of Stonington and Killingly.

With their third division championship win in a row out of the way, the team is headed to New Haven this weekend to face steep competition with a healthy dose of enthusiasm and determination.

The team is nervous, but ready.

“It’s super competitive,” captain Samantha Tulli, a senior, said.

The team won first runner-up in its division at the state championships last year, Quibble said, and will likely come up against St. Joseph High School in Trumbull, which has won a state championship three years running.

Montville will compete after noon on March 4 at the Floyd Little Athletic Center in New Haven – and Quibble said the team encourages any fans who can make it to come.

To win, the Montville team would have to perform as well or perhaps better than they did at the ECC championships in February.

“Just the bus ride there” will be enough to rack up nerves, Tulli said.

And Quibble has high expectations for her team’s performance.

“They would just have to nail a perfect routine again,” Quibble said.

m.shanahan@theday.com