INDIANAPOLIS –The Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC) announced Friday it will start sponsoring STUNT as its 26th sport, beginning in the 2025-26 academic year.
The inaugural season of GLVC STUNT will feature six institutions, including full-time league members Drury University, Lewis University, Maryville University, Quincy University, and Southwest Baptist University, as well as associate member East Stroudsburg University. East Stroudsburg was approved for associate membership status in September 2024.
Drury, Maryville, and Southwest Baptist have had non-varsity programs since 2019 but will elevate their programs to NCAA status starting in 2024-25. Lewis, Quincy, and East Stroudsburg will begin sponsoring the sport in 2024-25.
“We are pleased to welcome East Stroudsburg University as an associate member for the sport of STUNT.” said GLVC Commissioner Jim Naumovich “Their addition will allow the GLVC to sponsor STUNT as the league’s 26
th championship for the 2025-26 season and expand participation opportunities for hundreds of student-athletes currently competing in the sport at our member schools.”
Drury has gone 16-34 in the three seasons the school has competed in. The program’s first year of competition was in 2019 but it was put on a three-year pause before getting started back up in 2023. Kayla Duffey has served as the head coach since the program restarted.
Maryville has five seasons under its belt going 42-26 overall with seasons of 9-11 in 2022, 16-5 in 2023, and 19-8 in 2024. Kara Krawiecki has been the head coach since the inauguration of the program back in 2018.
Southwest Baptist has accumulated a 4-25 record over the five seasons of the program's existence. The Bearcats restarted their program in the 2023-24 season with the announcement of Cheyanne Matlock as the head coach.
Lewis will be led by Kaitlyn VanHekken in its inaugural season. VanHekken joined the Flyers from Dominican University where she was in a similar role for the past two years. A 2021 graduate of Alma College, VanHekken was a first0team College STUNT Coaches Association (CSCA) All-American and helped win National Cheerleading Association (NCA) team national championships in 2018 and 2021, along with earning a STUNT individual title in 2021
Quincy announced in June that it would begin sponsoring the sport and named third year Cheer coach Diane Shoemaker as the program’s first head coach.
East Stroudsburg is located in East Stroudsburg, Pa., and will begin its first season under the guidance of Kristina “Krikit” Gulics. The East Stroudsburg STUNT team will take over for the Acrobatics and Tumbling team where Gulics has been the head coach since June of 2022.
For more information on GLVC STUNT, stay tuned online at GLVCsports.com and social media (@GLVCsports; #GLVCstunt) throughout the coming years.