It was a close one, but they did it! The Wareham Vikings Winter Guard defeated the Melrose High School Winter Guard by two-tenths of a point during the New England Winter Guard Championships on April 3 to bring home a division title for the first time in four years.

Color Guard director Annmarie Churchill called the show "fantastic."

"Those 21 girls, when they got off the floor ... they had tears of joy," Churchill said of Sunday's performance, held at Reading Memorial High School. Each of the 21 guard members took home a medal for the accomplishment.

"They all wore their medals to school [Monday]," Churchill said.

Each guard is judged on dancing, how it uses equipment, overall choreography, and the general effect of the show. Wareham's show had the girls dancing and tossing to pop star Pink's "Glitter in the Air."

The Acton Boxborough Regional High School Winter Guard came in third place behind Melrose in the three-school New England Scholastic Band Association's "Guard Scholastic Regional A" division, with a score of 82.3.

Upon hearing that Melrose came in second place, Churchill said the Viking girls were ecstatic. So ecstatic, the team didn't even hear its score when it was announced.

"When we all calmed down, we said, 'What was the score?,'" Churchill recalled with a laugh.

Churchill said finding out how close the score was made the win even more exciting.

"We could have lost because of [something so small as] the placement of a hand," she noted.

Winter Guard Captain Rachel DeNardo, a senior, echoed that sentiment. "We were neck-and-neck with Melrose our entire season," she said. Wareham lost both times it previously competed against Melrose. "I'm just really proud of us, all the seniors, and the whole entire team."

DeNardo and fellow captain Sami Mares, also a senior, said this season was a particularly important one to win. Both were in middle school and members of the guard when the team last won a state competition.

"This year meant a lot. There was a lot of heart put into this show," Mares said. "I'm glad we could leave on such a good note."

The guard will lose four graduating seniors in total this year, which Churchill said makes her a bit nervous, as the Vikings will now move up to a more difficult division as a result of its state competition win.

But noting that the team only has one junior member with everyone else younger and eager to learn, she said confidently: "The program will stay strong."

For more information about the Wareham Winter Guard, visit the group's Facebook page at www.facebook.com/warehamcg.