The Leesville Road High School STUNT Team has made it to playoffs for the second time in program history and are second in the conference for the first time. The team also made it past the first round of playoffs for the first time in program history.
The team played Sanderson High School on May 3, and won 15-7. They advanced to the second round of playoffs against Corinth Holders High School and lost 13-5.
Playoffs
The first round of playoffs in the Northern Conference saw a match up between Corinth Holders (#1) High School and Heritage High School (#4). Corinth won, as expected, and they advanced to the second round.
Leesville, who ended the regular season ranking second, went up against, third ranking, Sanderson. The game was expected to be close as the week prior the two saw each other in a match that went into double overtime, with Leesville winning by only a single point.
“The hardest game was definitely the Sanderson game before playoffs. We went into double overtime and had to be absolutely perfect, and ended up winning by 1 point… It was the most rewarding win and it felt so good when all of my stunts hit,” said Julianne Gibson, freshman.
Leesville won the first round of playoffs fairly easily with a 5 point margin.
“I was really nervous going into the playoff game against Sanderson because the game the week before was really close,” said Emma Provo, junior.
“At the playoff game we were really clean and put a lot of our clean routines out, and we won the all four of the quarter one [routines] which put us in a really good spot,” said Taylor Venters, junior.
Leesville faced off number one ranking Corinth Holders the following week, on May 10. Corinth was undefeated during the regular season, and beat the Pride on March 22, with a score of 13-10.
“In the week before [the playoff game] we worked on the lower level routines, because we knew Corinth was probably focusing on going against Green Level. We knew the lower routines were where we could win our points,” said Venters.
Corinth started strong, ending the first quarter 3-1. The Pride could never catch their footing and ended the match losing, with a 7 point margin.
“The Corinth game was just fun in general, some coaches are very hard on their athletes but our coach just wanted us to have fun and not be nervous,” said Gibson.
Final Season Thoughts
The season overall was a success, with the team making history within the program. They beat Sanderson for the first time in their history and made it to second round of playoffs.
“This year was so fun. Stunting with the freshman and getting coached by Summer again was amazing,” said Provo. Summer Dubnam is the STUNT coach.
“My favorite part about this season has been meeting new people and upperclassmen, and getting to bond with everyone,” said Gibson.
The Pride went against teams like Heritage and Sanderson that had very similar skill levels, making for good, close, matches.
“The hardest team was probably either Sanderson or Heritage. I would say our teams were very similar in skill level so we had to make sure we were extra tight and pretty when we played them,” said Gibson.
This was also the last time the two seniors on the team, Kelly Brewer and Clare Smawley, competed with the team — many of whom they have stunted and cheered with for the past 2-3 years.
“I’m going to miss the seniors so much. I feel like we got so close with them this season, and in cheer, and everything is going to be so different without them,” said Venters.
The short, 8-week, STUNT season has come to an end, but the Pride has made history and many memories this season.
