JEFF FIELDER Editor
YODER, Wyo. – Brooklyn Leithead of Torrington, a senior at Southeast High School, is Nspire Today!’s Female Athlete of the Month for March. She recently helped the Cyclone girls basketball team capture the 1A state championship – the program’s third state title in four years. Southeast, which finished with a 19-10 record, defeated Cokeville 36-29 in the final. A two-year starting post, Brooklyn was a team captain this season along with fellow senior Anna Hartman. Brooklyn also excelled in volleyball. A three-year starter at middle blocker/outside hitter, she capped her senior campaign by being named the 1A Southeast Player of the Year. She also earned all-conference and all-state honors. In track and field, she competes in the shot put and discus. She’s qualified for state each of the last two seasons in the discus. Her career-best distances are 28-8 in the shot put and 97-5 in the discus. Brooklyn is also a standout in the classroom. She’s tied for the top GPA in her class with a 4.0. She’s also in her second year in National Honor Society, serving as the vice president this year. Other school activities she’s involved in are student council and the school leadership team. Outside of school, she works part-time at her family’s business, Leithead’s Appliance Center in Torrington. After high school, she plans to attend Eastern Wyoming College for a couple years before transferring to a four-year college to complete a degree in psychology. For a career, she wants to be a sports psychologist. Her parents are Jocelyn and Craig Leithead.
Q: Talk about how thrilling it was to win this year’s state basketball championship.
LEITHEAD: “It was very exciting. I don’t think any of us at the beginning of the season thought we would make it as far as we did. But as soon as we hit regionals, we decided that ‘we’re in it to win it.’”
Q: What was it that helped Southeast really become a force toward the end of the season?
LEITHEAD: “I would say it was our mentality and defense. Keeping our heads in the game was a big thing for us, especially in games where we fell behind and had to come back to win. Defensively, that’s always been a big focus of ours. We know that if our offense isn’t going well, we can rely on our defense to pick up the slack.”
Q: Coming into the basketball season, what did you think Southeast was capable of achieving?
LEITHEAD: “Going into the season, we thought we could make it pretty far if we learned to play well together as a team and learned to play strongly mentally. There were a couple rough patches we went through where I had some doubts about our team, but those doubts washed away as soon as we got to regionals.”
You can read the entire story in the March 2025 issue of Nspire Today! magazine. A one-year subscription (12 issues) is only $20. You may sign up for a subscription by sending $20 to Nspire Today!, P.O. Box 454, Scottsbluff, NE 69363, or you may pay with a credit card by calling 308-220-8907.
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