The start of girls flag football at BHS has started this year. The team’s head coach is Kaysen Mathews, who also coaches competitive flag football.
“I would say this is a little harder because my normal competitive teams play 5v5 so there normally is not a ton of players on a team,” Mathews said. “One thing I noticed is a lot of my drills and warm ups were taking longer than I was used to due to just more players on the roster”.
Mathews doesn’t have practice but he makes sure his team gets to games early to practice then.
“One of the challenges with it currently being a club sport is I have to keep in mind the sanctioned sports need to come first and need to work around those other sport schedules,” Mathews said. “that is why we currently just play on Wednesday’s and don’t practice because I just thought it would be hard to work around volleyball/cross country and band events”.
They have played 6 games so far this season winning 5 out of the 6. A big part of their wins is their defence who stops the other teams from winning, this defence is coached by Brian Hamrick.
“Our defense is good about not allowing many points! We celebrate big plays and fuel off each other,” Hamrick said. “We are really good at blitzing and making adjustments on the fly when we see what the offense is doing, that gets us interceptions”.
Every coach could make changes including Hamrick with his defense.
“Our defense could improve on flag pulling. Although we are good now, we could be great! Breaking down and staying in front to get the job done. Another improvement would be hustling to the ball and pursuit to save TD’s when a big play does happen,” Hamrick said. “Doing this prevents TD’s that aren’t really earned but more so gifted by our failure to sometimes hustle. Another improvement is to become ball hawks when the ball is in the air and don’t allow the wide receivers to catch 500 balls. Overall though the defense plays well but those are things that would make us more than great.”
The team is led by junior quarterback Emme Nigh who has secured many touchdowns herself with her powerful arm and big running ability. Also helps by communicating with her teammates on and off the field, and helping them understand plays more.
“I have enjoyed playing and helping lead this team, everyone is learning quickly and it’s a lot of fun playing together,” Nigh said.
Let’s see how Nigh feels about being this team’s leader.
“I love being the quarterback on this team. Being able to get my teammates the ball, let them make their own plays, and create opportunities for myself is very rewarding,” Nigh said.
This BHS team has two seniors making plays on the field with them. One of them being senior Gracie Hildabrand who has also helped make some big stops on defense.
“I have never played on a flag football team so going into this year was all new for me. I have found it is actually something I am pretty good at and with the help of my coaches and teammates I will be able to expand my skills and continue to play,” Hildabrand said. “We have had a pretty good season so far and I’m excited to continue to play for my first and last year.”