LODI, Calif. – To say girls flag football has finally arrived may be a bit of a misstatement.
According to the CIF state office teams could play prior to this year but it was not sanctioned by the CIF or covered under its bylaws.
The sport has been around for a while. In fact, according to retired commissioner Donald Collins the CIF San Francisco Section/Academic Athletic Association has been playing the sport since the 2012-13 academic school year.
“Regarding participation numbers 689 girls played flag football according to the 2022-23 census data collection from 54 of our member schools,” wrote CIF Director of Media Rebecca Brutlag.
The difference is beginning with the 2023-24 academic school year the sport has now been sanctioned by the California Interscholastic Federation and has been incorporated into the CIF bylaws
With sanctioning has come a significant increase in participation numbers. That information was provided by CIF Associate Executive Director Brian Seymour in an email.
“The San Francisco, Oakland, Sac-Joaquin, CCS, Los Angeles, and San Diego sections will have Girls Flag Football Section championships this year,” Seymour wrote. “The Southern Section will have championships in 2024.”
“Currently,” Seymour continued. “San Francisco has 12 teams, Oakland has eight teams, Sac-Joaquin has 69 teams, CCS has 71 teams, Los Angeles has 58 teams, Southern has 112 teams, and San Diego has 44 teams.”
We know of a handful of teams in the North Coast Section that are playing and we’re not sure about the Central and Northern Sections, but just adding up the numbers Seymour provided shows 374 schools are fielding teams and 262 will have playoffs this year. In that respect girls flag football has definitely arrived.
Since we had to be in the greater Sacramento area on Thursday we decided to venture to Lodi and see a match-up between arch rivals Lodi and Tokay-Lodi at the historic Grape Bowl.
Different rules
It would take a complete story to go over all the rules, and we’re still not sure of a few of them, as the game, and not only its players and coaches, but also the officials, are still evolving.
Here is what we’ll start with respect to rules for the game at the Grape Bowl:
- The field is 80-yards by 30-yards and the goal lines are at the 10-yard line. The sideline for the home team is the same as regular football but on the visitors side it is set up at the hash marks on that side of the field. You get four downs but must go 20-yards to get a first down, however penalties or turnovers can make that distance shorter. There are no chains but the down marker is placed at the spot needed to get the first down. A disc is used by the officials to signify where the play ended, and the player snapping the ball to the quarterback places it on that disc before snapping it.
- There is no kicking game. To start the game and the second half, as well as after a touchdown, the team in possession starts out on its own 30. After a TD the ball is placed at the 15 for a PAT and the 20 for a 2-point conversion. There are no punts. If a team decides not to go for it on fourth down, they tell the officials and the ball is placed on the 30 of the opposing team.
- It is illegal in flag football to do spin moves or use your arms and hands to protect the flag from being pulled. This results in a penalty for an illegal run. Also, unless the quarterback, who lines up seven yards behind the line of scrimmage, is being pursued by the two allowed blitzing defenders, only one run is allowed per series. A second run results in a penalty. Pass interference, offside, and holding penalties can also be called.
- There are two 20-minute halves for a varsity game and the clock doesn’t stop on incomplete passes, other than in the final two-minutes of the half and the game when it is a stop clock like in regular football. A scoreboard clock operates but mostly to give fans an indication of the time, but the official time is kept on the field by the officials. Also, each team gets three timeouts per half.
Game time
The setting could not have been better to watch a flag football game than at the Grape Bowl, and a crowd of a couple of hundred fans were on hand to catch the action.
Lodi had won a previous meeting with Tokay, 13-6 to open the season. However, after being ranked pretty high by the computer, they lost a rematch with Escalon on Wednesday, 13-0, after beating them 12-6 two weeks ago in a tournament, and then on Thursday the offense just couldn’t get going until late, and Tokay, and junior quarterback Aria Khan in particular, played very well in an 18-8 victory.
Khan was a pinpoint 19-of-22 passing for 250 yards and three TDs, plus she had a 13-yard run. She completed her first 10 passes and two of the three incompletions came on the game’s final drive that ended with her taking a knee as time expired.
“The first game was just the first game,” Khan remarked. “Everyone was nervous. Everyone was new to it. It was a lot different than a scrimmage and I was learning new plays right up until the game started.”
“Now, I trust my teammates more than ever,” Khan continued. “After watching plays I know better how they’ll unfold. Because it’s a new sport a lot has to do with who comes out and works the hardest.”
Come out is exactly what Tokay did. They started the game on their own 30 and all it took to cover the 60-yards to pay dirt was five plays. Senior and leading running back Jayda Perez started things off with a nine-yard run, Khan then connected with sophomore Skyla Rivera on a 13-yard completion followed by a three-yard run by Perez. Khan then found junior Kayleen Tuavao for a 19-yard pass reception and then came back to Tuavao for a 16-yard TD reception just three minutes into the game.
The point after pass failed but Tokay (4-3-2, 4-2 Tri-City Athletic League) had a 6-0 lead it never relinquished.
Lodi got the ball and went three-and-out and gave the ball back to Tokay at their 30, but after Khan completed six straight passes the sixth one came up short on fourth down and the ball went back to Lodi.
Lodi started to move the ball but after five plays senior quarterback Janie Schallberger threw an interception and senior Vivian Rodrigues returned it 23-yards to the Lodi 35. Four plays later Khan tossed a 39-yard TD pass to freshman Brooklyn Jeremic with 47.9 seconds left in the half. The PAT pass failed again and it was 12-0 Tokay.
Utilizing the stop clock Schallberger moved Lodi down field but on the final play of the half, a 31-yard completion to Emma Fuentes came up two yards short of the end zone as the officials signaled time had expired.
Lodi got the ball to begin the second half and moved it but on fourth-and-goal from five-yards out, Schallberger completed a pass but the receiver had gone into the regular football end zone to catch it, and the flag football end zone is from the 10 to the regular football end zone.
That meant Tokay got the ball at its own 15 and Khan marched them down the field culminating in a seven-yard TD pass to Perez with 8:15 left to play. The PAT pass failed again, but missing three PATs was about the only thing Khan didn’t do in the game and Tokay had an 18-0 lead and the fate of Lodi was pretty much sealed.
Lodi (7-2-1, 3-1) finally got on the board on a 20-yard pass from Schallberger to Emma Fuentes, and then found Fuentes for a 2-point conversion, but by then there was only 2:15 left to play.
Perez finished with four catches for 66 yards and the one TD receiving, and four carries for 28 yards rushing, Jeremic had two catches for 57 yards and the one TD, Tuavao had two receptions for 35 yards and the TD, and junior and leading wide receiver Christina Ochoa had five receptions for 42 yards.
“In the first game our quarterback was struggling so we changed up the offense and she’s learning and developing,” said Tokay head coach George Bozovich. “The players didn’t really understand the game. We watched film and every game has been a learning process because none of them have played ball.”
“It's different for them,” Bozovich continued. “I saw the way our quarterback moved and I asked her if she could throw and we watched some decent throws and I said let’s play with it.”
For his part Lodi head coach George Duenas took it well after losing two straight games and also having a stint in the hospital after getting injured in an auto accident.
“Tokay didn’t surprise me. They have some great athletes,” Duenas said. “But with the game still so new to the girls we’re still in a teaching mode.”
With both coaches talking about the game being so new and being in a teaching mode, come playoff time the landscape could change more than once.
Tokay has now won four straight games after losing its first two, tying the next two, and then losing 20-6 to the same Escalon team Lodi has split with. Their next game is at home on Thursday in a Tri-City Athletic League match-up with West-Tracy
Lodi will need to regroup, and after suffering its first Tri-City Athletic League loss they will be on the road at West-Tracy on Tuesday for another league match-up.
