Last year in the United States, 15,716 girls played high school flag football; a 40% jump from three years prior; according to Pleasanton Weekly. One of the factors that stimulated this growth were high school powderpuff games. The Lions annual powder puff game will be this November; against cross town rivals, the Jonathan Lawmen.
The powderpuff team is coached by Casey Blake, Thomas Hair, Taylor Jagoe, Zachary Phelan, Thomas Rashad, Jeffrey Raucci, Tammi Spose, and Scott Wiley. Coach Spose originally started coaching powderpuff 15 years ago, in North Haven.
Spose states, “I had a great experience playing my senior year and wanted to share that experience so that others can have that same experience.”
The game is going to take place on Tuesday, November 21st, at Lawmen Stadium. The game will be at 6:00 P.M.. Following powderpuff, there is also the annual Thanksgiving game. This game will take place at Foran’s Vito DeVito field, between our Foran Lions and the Lawmen at 10:30 A.M.
Junior and senior girls can join powderpuff. Athletes can try out for certain positions and attend 9 practices prior to game day. The amount of experience each girl has with football varies.
Coach Phelan says, “Everyone has different background. You have to kind of start somewhere and then figure out what people know. Some people if we had a girls team would play year round, and then some people have never watched a football game.”
Coach Spose explains, “Many girls come in not knowing what a first down is or how many you get before you turn the ball over. It is a short time to teach skills as well, however, every year I have been impressed by how quickly everyone picks up on the plays and learn[s] how to play the game.”
Practices consist of doing drills that will prepare the girls for the obstacles they’ll face offensively and defensively, that are unlike any other sport.
Coach Phelan quotes, “We have some basic drills, and then from the basic drills; flagging and stuff like that; we break into offense defense, go over plays and schemes to kind of figure out what we look like and then we get into a full team practice and do some light scrimmaging.”
Coach Raucci also elaborates, “We’re really gonna focus on flagging drills; so stations where they learn how to get the proper pursuit for someone with the football to be able to flag them properly, just being able to kind of learn how to flag so that we can improve a little bit defensively.”
This year’s powder puff team consists of six captains. They are seniors Kelly Aspras, Isabella Fallon, Taylor LaFountain, Maia Matula, Mackenzie Posey, and Isabella Valentin.
The Lions QB1 is senior Mackenzie Posey. The quick decisions she has to make on the field are what she feels is the hardest part of her position. In preparing for her role she has dedicated much of her time to practicing throwing the football and thinking over plays/positioning.
“I think my job as QB is to hype everyone up, have a good time, and know the plays to help other people out.”
The ground rules of flag football are almost exactly the same as regular football, tackling is just replaced by grabbing the flags of your opponents. The playing field remains the same, the number of players on the field (11) remains the same, and the quarters are 15 minutes with a five minute halftime.
Flag football originated on military bases during World War II. It has come a long way since then, and today there are actually some high school girls flag football teams across the country. The sport is developing quickly, and becoming a league many girls can participate in at high schools across the nation.
“I love this idea! My former North Haven coach is currently piloting the new flag football league in Wallingford and I am very excited about it. I think it’s a great opportunity and a big step for girls sports.” Spose says.
Opinions on this topic vary, but not without valid reason.
“You would lose interest in other sports, and again the more opportunity the better, but also it comes with its vices. We’re already kind of hurting for numbers in a lot of sports. So sometimes more opportunity and more choice is great, sometimes it actually has its downfalls, so I think this would be 50/50, 50% some downfalls for other sports, but 50% more opportunity for girls who want to engage in flag football.” states Coach Raucci.
Coach Phelan explains, “All that always comes down to funding and people, so looking at girls flag football or even I played rugby in college; I loved that rugby program; those might be sports that we’d have to do jointly with Law, something like that, in terms of funding and also just resources, and the resources just being people. Because the more sports you put the more you’re competing against each other for athletes but I’m all for everybody doing everything. Why not give it a shot and get involved?”
The future of girls flag football is a story we’ll see develop over the next few years, however our 2023 Foran powder puff girls story will be determined on November 22. All members of the team have sharpened their skills as much as possible and made immense progress in such a short amount of time. The goal for the ladies Tuesday night is to walk away with a victory.
