NEW HOME, Texas (KCBD) – A historic moment, years in the making for the New Home Lady Leopards cheer team, from getting almost last in their first-ever UIL Spirit State Championship five years ago, to two back-to-back 3rd place finishes in 2024 and 2025, to now, able to call themselves State Champions after bringing home the gold in the 2AD1 UIL Spirit State Championship!
Head coach Traci Ysasaga told us this has been years of blood, sweat and tears to get to this moment, but what others may not know about Coach Ysasaga is that she does all of the choreography for the routine in house herself with her coaches and athletes. Unlike other, bigger schools, even a lot of 2A schools, New Home is an in-house unit when it comes to choreography. They don’t go out and hire a choreographer, they do it together as one.
“The first time we ever came, which was five years ago, we placed nearly last place at UIL against about 70-something teams and I remember we looked at the girls and we’re like, this will never happen again. Like, I promise you, we will never walk out of this competition in the position we’re in right now. And so, you know, going back to the last few years of medaling in third, I think it’s just fired them up and they knew like they had one job this year and that’s all they wanted. There was no second place. There was no third place for us, it was a job that we knew we had to get done and that was the number one goal was first place. And so, it’s been years in the making, a lot of blood, sweat and tears,” said Traci Ysasaga.
It isn’t just one cheer or chant that this New Home Lady Leopard cheerleading team is having to go out and perform either, it’s a three-part routine with a band chant section, crowd leading section, and fight song, on top of sometimes a situational chant where they have to listen for an offensive or defensive call and be ready to perform the correct chant. The team adds different stunts, standing tumbling, flags, megaphones, signs and utilizes their mascots in the best way in order to secure a State Championship worthy routine.
Senior Lady Leopard and four-year member of the UIL team, Mylee Baum and Junior Lady Leopard and two-year member of the UIL team Locklynn Mounce talked a lot about the work that goes into each section.
“From an outside perspective of cheerleading, it may seem a little bit silly but it’s really cool that we have just a complete routine and three parts and a lot goes into it. We just have to trust our teammates, everyone is going to do their part and just really important for us to work hard for each other and just put it all on the mat and just complete our performance and do the best that we can,” said Mylee Baum.
“Through these three years, we cheer at football games, basketball games, we put on 10 pep rallies, like we don’t have a lot of time to work on UIL really so when we do have to work on it, we work so incredibly hard and we’re here mornings, afternoons, nights, we did a lot of nights this year because we had to qualify for nationals and it’s just been so crazy and hectic but it was all worth it,” said Locklynn Mounce.
As many know, the cheerleading team is usually the ones who are bringing that extra support to the sporting events, but this New Home community, fans, and even the football team turned into cheerleaders for just a few days.
Senior Lady Leopard and four-year member of the UIL team, Kellyn Gray spoke on the support from the community and how much it means to this team.
“I think that coming home we did get more respect and more congratulations than we were expecting. Everybody was very, very supportive. I had multiple of the football boys tell us that they were proud of us, and good job. It was really special. We actually had a group of boys go to UIL and support us there. There’s videos of them in the front just losing their minds over our win. So, it was good to feel support. Because, you know, we do go and support everything they do. That’s our job,” Kellyn Gray said.
But the work isn’t finished yet. The New Home Lady Leopards have won their first ever State title gold medals and are immediately back to work for the National School Spirit Championships at the Walt Disney World Resort, January 30th through February 1st.
Sophomore Lady Leopard and first-year member of the UIL team, Marley Fogerson spoke on the excitement and hunger this New Home Cheer team has now that they’ve got a State Championship title under their belts.
“Winning, after winning State, it was just such an amazing feeling. We’re chasing that feeling again to go win nationals and all of this hard work; we’re just such a competitive team that we’re putting in every bit of that work until January 29th when we leave. And then even while we’re there, we’ll be practicing and practicing and practicing, like it’s not just fun, it’s a business trip to us. Like it’s everything, we pour our everything into cheer and we’re really hoping that we can bring home a National Championship too, because that would be really cool after the first State Championship at New Home,” said Marley Fogerson.
So, next stop for the New Home Lady Leopards cheer team? They’re headed to Nationals for the first time ever, fighting for a chance to call themselves National Champions.
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