In an unexpected turn of events Mount Si High School’s girls flag football team dominated their 24′-25′ season, gaining more momentum than the Wildcat’s varsity football team. Undefeated with 8 straight “mercy rule” victories (when the game is stopped after one team is up by a set amount) Mount Si girls flag football made a name for themselves across the state.
Coach Sean Hyland played varsity football at Mount Si back when he was in high school ten years ago, and he came back to coach girls flag football along with JV football. The girls flag football program has been thriving under Hyland’s leadership with a 9-0 record, but the varsity football team struggled during its season with a 3-7 record.
Men have been playing football for roughly 100 years longer than women have been playing flag football. So why isn’t Mount Si’s football team better considering its century-long advantage and experience? One would expect the varsity football team to have more advanced training and strategies. So why have the Wildcats seen such a difference in performance between the boys and the girls teams?
“Brian, the defensive coach, said our team is not like any other team at Mount Si. We’re special,” Georgia Dennis, a Mount Si flag football player said. Maya Engel, the founder and captain of the club, also expressed that everyone is just happy to be there, and there are some teammates who might never see the field but still show up and support every day. This commitment to the team and spirit is was sets flag football apart.
Though flag football might borrow many skills from traditional football, the training can still look very different. For starters, there is no tackling in flag football, so the ball carrier wears three roughly 15”x2” strips of fabric attached by Velcro and when an opposing team member successfully removes the flag from the ball carrier, the play is ended.
Flag football players also tend not to be worked as hard as football players. Why might this be? Generally, it’s because flag football is rarely an athlete’s first sport, so it’s more often seen as a fun activity for students to bond over. Additionally, there is no opportunity to play flag football in college, so high school flag football players don’t need to be prepped for a future in the sport beyond high school or deal with the pressure of committing to an NCAA program. But wait! The American Flag Football League (AFFL) has announced on its website that it is launching “men’s and women’s professional seasons together in the spring of 2025”. With flag football advancing to the pros, we may see colleges adding flag football programs beyond just intermural clubs in the future.
In an interview with Mount Si’s flag football players, Anna Braukus and Georgia Dennis both expressed that they haven’t thought of pursuing flag football in college, even with the possibility of programs starting up. So why do the Wildcats care so much about the team? “It’s my senior year and I just want to give it all I’ve got. Try everything that I can – try before I can’t anymore because in college, I’m not going to be able to play flag football, so now I just want to have as much fun as I can with the people that I love the most,” says Braukus.
While she doesn’t plan to play collegiately, Engel may see flag football playing a larger role in her life in the near future. “I got invited to the US National camp, and if I make that team and then make their travel team, I’ll be in the Olympics,” shared the team captain. She later explained that if given the opportunity to go pro, she would take it.
When speaking with Engel, we discussed the idea behind starting the girls flag football club at Mount Si. “I always played flag as a kid with the boys, and I wanted to make a change. I had a desire and then I just went with it,” she shared. With the help of her assistant varsity soccer coach, who played professional tackle football, the club was founded three years ago.
Engel also explained that many of her teammates come from a background of some other sport like soccer, softball, lacrosse and basketball. Last year, they even had 11 girls quit basketball to play flag football. This helps take away feelings of competition between teammates because everyone is having fun with friends that they share other sports with. Braukus even said, “Everybody’s for each other, and there is no jealousy. It’s just a really healthy environment”.
The coaches help with the uplifting, healthy environment because, “They don’t yell at us, they just encourage us and always tell us to have fun,” Dennis and Braukus explained. Engel shared one of her favorite memories from practice: “At water break, we just went and put on gorilla costumes and ran back out, and our coaches just let us practice in them”.
It’s inspiring to see so many young women come together to start something for themselves and see them really thrive at it. Although flag football is growing in popularity, it is not an official sport at all schools, including Mount Si, which is why they started their club.
It’s especially impressive how well this group of girls has performed considering that they aren’t an official team, but a club. Engel, Dennis, and Braukus all agreed their favorite way to celebrate a team victory is “our TikToks” or having the bus driver take them to Dairy Queen.
I asked Engel how the team manages to work through tough situations in a game, to which she responded: “If our team is laughing on the field, we play amazing. When everyone is just playing for each other, we play so good. We had this one game where we were down 7-0 at half, and we were all getting in our heads and being super serious, but then the next half we were just joking and laughing, and we ended up winning 30-7”.
The team’s sense of comradery and love of the sport could be the deciding factor on why these girls are surpassing the varsity team in rankings. Whatever separates the girls flag football team from the boys football team, it’s undeniable that when it comes to football at Mount Si, the girls are showing the boys how it’s done.
