Burroughs Stunt Team Falls 26-18 to Moorpark

Burroughs High School’s Stunt team lost to Moorpark 26-18 on Thursday, but the final score doesn’t capture what that matchup actually revealed about where the Bears program stands right now.

Scheduling’s a real challenge for Burroughs. The Bears are one of only two Pacific League schools that field a Stunt team, so they can’t just fill their calendar with league dates. They have to go out and find nonleague opponents willing to travel. Moorpark was one of those opponents, and the Musketeers didn’t come to hand Burroughs a win. They came to compete.

Stunt is a sport that grew out of competitive cheer, built around four timed routines that isolate specific skills. Partner stunts, jumps and tumbling, pyramids and tosses, and a fourth combined element make up the scoring structure. It’s not a casual afternoon sport. The Musketeers, representing a program from the Almont League, had the experience edge from the opening quarter.

Moorpark grabbed two points in routine two right away while Burroughs earned one. Routine five saw Burroughs sit out, and Moorpark couldn’t convert the opportunity either. Both teams picked up a point each on routines three and four, and Moorpark closed the first quarter with the lead.

The second quarter didn’t close the gap. Moorpark won routine two 2-1 and the teams split routine one evenly, one point each. Halftime score: 9-5, Moorpark. That’s a four-point hole. Stealable, maybe, but only if Burroughs came out of the locker room with something different.

They didn’t find it.

Third quarter, Moorpark scored on routine four before both sides split routine one. After routine two in that period, the Musketeers had pushed the lead to 12-6. Burroughs fought back with two points on routine three, trimming the margin to 13-8 going into the fourth. It wasn’t enough runway left.

Moorpark’s fourth quarter was its cleanest stretch of the afternoon. The Musketeers swept routine four entirely, earning points in partner stunts, jumps and tumbling, and pyramids and tosses. They added two more points in partner stunts on routine one. Both teams split the jumps and tumbling and pyramids and tosses sections of that same routine. The Bears couldn’t match the pace.

Burroughs did finish with some momentum worth noting. The Bears picked up two points in jumps and tumbling on routine two and two more in pyramids and tosses on routine three late in the match. That’s 18 points against a Moorpark squad that’s been at this longer. For coach Alyssa Magoon, that number matters.

“The team did great today. This is one of our higher scoring games against a really competitive team,” Magoon told reporters after the match. “Moorpark has been competing for a few years more than us. It was great to see us competitive. We gave it our all. My athletes were giving it their best and it was really awesome to see.”

Magoon’s in her third year with the program and she’s watched it grow from a group still figuring out how to compete at this level into a team that can push an experienced Musketeers squad to the final quarter. That’s not nothing. It’s a California-level sport that demands precision and consistency, and Finding quality competition in the Pacific League isn’t easy when you’re one of two teams in the league running a Stunt program.

The Bears’ 26-18 loss to Moorpark was covered by MyBurbank following Thursday’s competition. The full quarter-by-quarter breakdown is available there for anyone who wants the detailed scoring across each routine.

What matters to Magoon isn’t the final score. It’s the 18 points her athletes put on the board against a program with more experience and more reps. Burroughs still has work to do, and the schedule won’t get easier when the Bears keep reaching outside the Pacific League for competition. But Thursday showed they’re not just filling out an opponent’s bracket anymore.