TROY >> Twelve teams huddled on the floor of the Troy Athens gym awaiting the results of Saturday afternoon’s D1 regional competition.

When the four programs who celebrated on the same hardwood at districts last weekend, the intrigue was less about which quartet would be announced last, but rather in what order.

Rochester, Stoney Creek and Adams came in as the class of the OAA — and finished the end of the season in that order — while Utica Eisenhower just trailed those three at No. 6 in the most recent CCCAM rankings.

With little room for error to crack that upper-third that qualifies for regionals, and even less to win, Rochester maintained its course as the team to beat this season by taking first at districts.

Seven days later, all those Rochester schools made the cut yet again, but this time it was Stoney Creek leading the pack of the city’s perennial powers.

The defending state champions scored a total of 793.26 points, edging out previously unbeaten Rochester (792.88) and Adams (792.76) to win the regional.

“When we heard Rochester’s name go second, I thought I almost started seeing lights from how everybody was going crazy,” Stoney Creek senior Sarah Adams said. “It’s an amazing experience. I love this sport.”

The Falcons were ahead of Stoney after the first two rounds by a miniscule two-hundredths of a point, and betting against them in Round 3 this season has been a losing proposition. But Stoney scored 322.6 in Round 3, while both Adams and Rochester each tallied a third-round total of 322.2.

In any other regional, that may have been an a footnote, but every bit of evidence from when that leading trio has competed against one another has affirmed that it was always going to be this close. Rochester finished with a 793.28 total at the district competition, where the Highlanders came runner-up with a score of 792.6 and Stoney’s score was 792.36.

“I feel like when I get on that mat, no one else is there,” Adams said. “It’s just me, my team and our emotion and love for each other, and those judges. And when we get out there, we just settle in, it all goes quiet, and when you hear that ‘set, ready,’ you just go full force.”

Like Rochester, Stoney also had plenty of turnover from last year’s team, making the outcome all the more impressive.

“We had a senior-heavy team last year and a lot of inexperienced kids on the floor (now), so our message the whole season has just been confidence,” said Tricia Williams, who has been Stoney’s head coach since the school opened over two decades ago. “In practice, they’re amazing. We’ve made a lot of errors throughout the season while we compete, and today, they just brought what they do every single day for us in the gym onto the competition mat today, and we didn’t have those types of errors. They really owned the mat with their confidence, and that makes all the difference in the world, believing in themselves like I haven’t seem them do yet this season.

“I’m so excited going into state finals with that experience under their belts and knowing that they can do it again.”

Despite Rochester’s head-to-head dominance this season, Adams, one of Stoney’s 11 returning seniors from last year, spoke about getting the job done with so much turnover, saying, “Honestly, it’s a completely different team, but that’s the best part about it. We still bring that fire, that emotion. And knowing that Rochester hasn’t been beaten all this season, knowing that we were able to today at regionals, it makes the fire go crazy. And I know when we go to states next week, it’s going to burn that fire even more.”

Whereas the drop-off in scores after third place (and fourth) was more stark at districts, the margins remained thin as ever in the race for the coveted fourth spot to qualify for state. Eisenhower, the fourth-place finisher from the Athens district, came in sixth Saturday with 783.46 points.

That meant that neither Wyandotte Roosevelt nor Dakota wanted to hear its name next when fifth place was announced.

Rightfully, Dakota’s team went hysterical when Roosevelt was revealed to be fifth with 785.58 points. The Cougars took fourth with a score of 786.48.

It marks the first time Dakota has reached the finals since 2011.

“We just came in and did what we do,” said Dakota head coach Michela Worthy, in charge of the program there for 23 seasons. “We were not chasing anybody. We were going to have our day, do our best. The Rochester schools, Eisenhower, LCN, Roosevelt; they’re all amazing teams. It could have gone any way. I’m just glad we had such a great day.”

When asked if she had a gut feeling after any particular round, Worthy said she wasn’t because she declined to look at scores throughout. “I was 100% focused on the team getting in the right mindset and having them out there doing their best. I just kept telling them, ‘This is our turn. This is your time. Do your best.’ And I’m so proud of them.

“This team has taken all the coaching we’ve given them. They’ve made the corrections. We only had nine returners from last year’s team, so it’s a fairly new team, and they’ve just dialed in and done what we asked them to do. There’s never been a moment where I wished this was over. I’m so blessed to have another week with this group of kids.”

L’Anse Creuse North took seventh place with a total of 782.38 points, followed by Woodhaven (778.18), Bedford (765.04), Westland John Glenn (739.02), Cass Tech (734.1) and Utica Ford (734.02).

Rockford, Hartland, Brighton and Grandville will join the four qualifiers from Athens at next Friday’s D1 finals in Mount Pleasant.