In a world where high school gymnasts are often underappreciated, the Lakewood High School girls gymnastics team makes itself heard.

By hosting most of their regular-season meets at their home gym, Horace Mann Elementary School, consistently placing high and encouraging the LHS student body to show up and show out, establishes the team as a hard-working, passionate program.

On Tuesday, Feb. 3, the team celebrated its hard work throughout the season at its final home meet, which also served as senior night.

The Rangers honored seniors Maddie Breitenbach, Isabella Lester, Grace Liderbach, Charlotte Reed, and Sara Surace on Tuesday night.

“Senior night is all about the seniors; they can really showcase everything that they’ve learned the past four years and in their lives, and it’s a chance for them to just be confident and do their own things,” said coach Emily Perez.


The senior celebratory wall.
“All the seniors actually wanted to be captains this year, so they were able to step up and direct the team at practices and encourage them at gymnastics meets,” Perez said.

The seniors also stepped into leadership roles two years ago, when coach Tom Glunt suffered a serious stroke.

“When coach Glunt got sick, and he had a stroke, a lot of the seniors were here, and they stepped up and really helped out and were there for him and the other girls on the team,” Perez shared.

The situation ultimately taught the girls a new level of responsibility and leadership that they carried with them into their senior year.

“I help lead team warmups a lot, and just help direct my other teammates, like newer people. I’ve taken more of an effort to try and make sure they feel welcome and including everybody … just trying to make sure everyone has a role and stuff to do,” said senior Charlotte Reed.

Reed has been on the high school’s gymnastics team for three years, making up a significant portion of her high school career.

“It’s helped me to be more inclusive with people. [I’ll miss] the environment. It’s really fun to just go somewhere and be able to just try new things and not have to feel judged or anything. And I think that’s a really unique environment to be able to find. I’m gonna miss all the friends I’ve made,” said Reed.

Senior Isabella Lester has also been on the team for three years and expressed similar thoughts.

“I will for sure miss it because it taught me a lot, and it gave me some very good friendships and just taught me what a team should be like and should look like,” Lester said.

“I ended up joining gymnastics, and it was just, like, life-changing, literally, like it was so new and everyone else on the team was also pretty much new. But it was just sort of comforting, and I felt like I wasn’t being judged ever. And it was just like I could actually grow and try to do things that all these other people are doing.”

Along with the five LHS gymnastics seniors, the team also practices and competes with the Holy Name High School girls gymnastics team. On Tuesday, Holy Name celebrated two seniors, J’nilia Davis and Riley Ramser.

As for the future of the program, the seniors had some advice to give to the underclassmen.

“Try to be nice, try to be respectful, try not to judge people, because that can really hurt people’s self-esteem … I would also say to just chase your dreams. Try hard, don’t give up,” said Lester.

Reed said, “They need to give themselves a lot more credit for what they do well. I think a lot of the time in gymnastics you beat yourself up, or the little things and mistakes you made, and you miss the complete great things, like how well you’re actually doing.”

The Rangers have two more regular-season meets on the road before finishing off the season with districts in March.