Girls flag football: Teams find footing as number of Sacramento-area programs nearly doubles
As a freshman last year, Gabriella Devlin was thrown into the fire, learning the most important position in a brand new sport at Christian Brothers High School.
By season’s end, Devlin had helped the Falcons to a Sac-Joaquin Section championship at the Division II level. This year, Devlin has stepped into a receiver role so that a new freshman can shine at QB for CB.
“It was pretty seamless,” said Devlin after a recent win. “Last year when I stepped in, it was a little chaotic because we’d just lost our other quarterback. I was just trying to figure out everything.”
Freshman Taylor Jernigan had the defending champs off to a 9-0 start before falling Monday to Woodcreek. In her first nine starts, Jernigan completed 60% of her passes for more than 2,000 yards and 35 touchdowns.
“Taylor came in from the offseason, and it was a seamless transition,” said Devlin, who has eight receiving TDs for the Falcons. “We all welcomed her. She’s a really good QB.”
The Falcons, placed second in this week’s Sacramento Bee flag football rankings, were 2-0 in Capital Valley Conference play entering Monday with surefire showdowns with Woodcreek, Ponderosa, Vista del Lago and Antelope among the league’s top contenders.
Meanwhile, Del Oro, The Bee’s No. 1-ranked flag football team and defending Division I section champ, continues to look the part.
The Golden Eagles also entered the week unbeaten at 8-0. Reigning Bee Coach of the Year Steve Birch continues to make the most of his juggling act with several multi-sport athletes playing key roles.
Quarterback Delaney Osborne, who has a verbal commitment to play softball at Southern Illinois University, has tremendous footwork to go with her tight spiral. She sports a .631 completion rate with 19 TDs.
Her favorite targets include Fallon Strohm (eight receiving TDs), Chloe Champas (five) and Bella Von Seipler (four), who is committed to play basketball at the University of San Diego. Von Seipler was named MVP of the second annual Larry Wyatt Memorial Tournament hosted by Del Oro in late August. Wyatt was a beloved teacher and football coach at Del Oro who died suddenly at 70 in 2019.
The Golden Eagles also totaled 20 interceptions as a team through their first eight games.
But who are some of the new names? The Sac-Joaquin Section nearly doubled the amount of flag football programs from Year 1 to Year 2 — a testament to the booming popularity of the sport.
Here’s a quick rundown of notable first-year programs on the rise in the Sacramento region.
Pondo coming in hot
Ponderosa of Shingle Springs is No. 3 in The Bee’s rankings. The Bruins shot out of a cannon with a 26-6 win over Oak Ridge in their section foundation game on Aug. 21, an exhibition to raise scholarship money throughout the section.
Brooklynn Nordquist threw four TD passes (three to Rowan Thomas, who had 100 receiving yards on five catches) against the Trojans and then tossed three more in a 27-13 win over St. Francis to officially open the season Aug. 26. Nordquist also has five interceptions on defense. She plays basketball and softball for the Bruins.
Ponderosa proved to be no fluke in the following weeks, improving to 10-0, including five shutouts. On Aug. 29, the Bruins became the first team in the section this season to drop 60 points in a 60-0 shutout over Folsom. Molly McFarland is one of the section’s top rushers with 375 yards and three touchdowns. She also leads the Bruins with 394 receiving yards to go with seven scores.
McClatchy has a Lion’s roar
No. 4 McClatchy has proven to be one of the first-year programs unafraid of the competition. The Lions are a perfect 12-0 with some lopsided scoreboards, including five wins in one day at a tournament at Grant on Aug. 24. McClatchy beat Foresthill, Wheatland, Destiny Christian and West Park twice.
The combined score for those five games was 157-19, McClatchy.
The Lions haven’t scored fewer than 27 points in a game. Junior QB Daisy Throckmorton, who also plays basketball for the Lions, had 2,969 passing yards with 45 TDs, both Sacramento-area highs, at the end of last week. Her top targets include freshman Rihanna Sharma, sophomore Savanna Hill and junior Mazie Kergan. Sharma has nine interceptions on defense, returning four of them for scores.
Vacaville enters the chat
The Vacaville Bulldogs are one of the strongest first-year programs in the section at 8-2, their only losses coming against two of The Bee’s top teams in Del Oro and Christian Brothers.
The Bulldogs are quarterbacked by junior Bella Salais. Her father and Vacaville assistant coach David Salais said she goes by the nickname “Cheesy” for her knack to spin a fastball as a softball pitcher.
There’s plenty of cheddar to go around as Salais has a charcuterie board of targets surrounding her, including Marley Walpole, Sophia Franzoni and Sam MacNiven.
West Park stuns Woodcreek
Woodcreek began the 2023 season with 23 straight wins before losing in the section Division I final against Del Oro. Several coaches tabbed the Timberwolves as the team to beat coming into 2024.
So, West Park, a “747” series neighbor in Roseville, decided to check the Timberwolves right off their list to begin the season. The Panthers took down the Bee’s preseason No. 2 team on Aug. 26 with a 20-18 win.
West Park went 13-8 last year and has springboarded into The Bee’s Top 10 with a 10-2 mark.
THE BEE’S TOP 15
(Records through Monday)
- Del Oro (9-0)
- Ponderosa (10-0)
- McClatchy (12-0)
- West Park (10-2)
- Woodcreek (7-2)
- Christian Brothers (9-1)
- Vacaville (8-2)
- Colfax (4-0)
- Del Campo (5-3)
- Antelope (9-2)
- Granite Bay (3-2)
- Whitney (7-3)
- Pleasant Grove (6-2)
- Rocklin (5-7)
- Dixon (5-0)
Bubble: Bella Vista (3-3), Cosumnes Oaks (4-2), Grant (2-1), Destiny Christian (4-4), Oak Ridge (4-3), Pioneer (3-4), Rio Linda (6-5), Sacramento Adventist (5-1), Vista del Lago (3-1).
Nick Pecoraro is a sports journalist and host of “Premier Preps with Nick Pecoraro,” a weekly prep show available on YouTube that recaps games and teams in the Sacramento area each week. Find it at youtube.com/@PremierPreps.
This story was originally published September 17, 2024 at 12:05 PM.