LEWISTON – The Lewiston High School mock trial team lost.

Don’t call them losers, though.

“We prefer to call it not winning,'” said 15-year-old Husayn Carnegie.

Lewiston had passion and determination. Hamden Academy, long considered the king of mock trial, had experience and a long record of state championships.

Last Friday, the two groups locked horns for hours at Kennebec County Superior Court. For a while, it seemed like Lewiston might do the impossible.

Then Hampden came back in the second round.

By the time the dust had settled, Hampden was the winner. Once again, it would move from the semifinals to the state finals.

For embattled Lewiston, there was disappointment, but also pride.

With nearly half of Lewiston’s 15 members new this year, few had expected the team to go so very far.

It had taken on the king. Some say it nearly won.

“I was inordinately proud of these kids,” said mock trial coach Joan Macri. “I called it a triumphant loss.”

Three hundred and fifty students from 27 Maine high schools, including Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School, Edward Little High School and St. Dominic’s Regional High School in Auburn, started the mock trial competition this fall. During each competition, one team played the prosecution and the other played the defense, with members taking over the roles of victim and defendant, attorneys, witnesses and court clerks. After a full trial, the two teams switched sides and started over.

With judges presiding, teams gained or lost points for their opening and closing arguments and witness examinations. The winning team went on to the next round.

For the past four years, Lewiston has made it to the semifinals or state finals. But last year, nine of its longtime members graduated. When school started again this fall, almost half the team was new.

Without a cohesive, experienced team, Lewiston wasn’t expected to get very far.

“This was our building year,” Macri said.

Instead, the gregarious teenagers quickly bonded. Within weeks, they’d formed a dedicated, tight-knit group that was happy to take direction and share the limelight.

“Of the three years I’ve been here, I think this is the best team,” said 17-year-old Katie Lauze.

When the competition started in November, the team beat St. Dominic’s Regional High School. Then Monmouth Academy and Brewer High School.

“They just got better and better,” Macri said.

When it came time to face Hampden, Lewiston was nervous, but also confident.

As in every round, the case was a mock libel suit in which an embittered student called a teacher a “druggie” on the school’s Internet bulletin board. Lewiston’s opening argument was amazing, some said. Its actors were both passionate and poised. In the first half, Hampden lost objection after objection, Macri said.

Lewiston’s novices actually seemed to fluster the other side.

“There was no weak link,” said Nic Dufault.

Hampden improved in the second half. It was stronger.

It won.

On Monday, the 15 teenagers were disappointed, but happy, too.

They’d done well, they said, despite the odds. They hadn’t won, but they weren’t losers, either.

“It was a nail-biter at the end,” Macri said.

Besides, the team said, there’s always next year.

Said Carnegie, “We’re gonna win.”

Hampden Academy and Catherine McAuley High School in Portland will compete in the state championship Tuesday in Portland. The winner will go on to the national competition in Charlotte, N.C., in early May.