Local girls enjoying first season of flag football
When Raia Lamping found out the WPIAL was going to sanction girls flag football, she knew that she wanted to play.
She also felt it was a perfect addition to the athletic choices girls have at Peters Township.
So, she went to work alongside her mother to build the program from the grassroots level.
“We had to do a lot of stuff with the athletic department first, but once we got through that, then we had a big social media presence as well as word of mouth,” said Lamping, a sophomore at Peters Township. “We posted flyers in our school. I told all of my friends and it just kind of kept going from there.”
The work was well worth it. Peters Township is one of several local teams that have fielded a team in the inaugural season of WPIAL girls flag football.
Other schools with a team are California, Monessen, Belle Vernon and South Fayette.
The inaugural season concludes with semifinals and championship games Thursday at Upper St. Clair.
A few schools got a head start because they fielded a team through a program sponsored by the Pittsburgh Steelers, but most are in their first season of play.
California and Peters Township are both in the first year.
Both teams had good numbers for their first season with rosters of more than 20 girls. The next challenge for each team was figuring out what girls fit best in each position, while learning the nuances of the game on the fly.
Outside of pulling a flag, there are some other differences from tackle football. The game is played 7-on-7. Quarters are 12 minutes, but they are a running clock except in the final two minutes of each half. The field is only 80 yards compared to 100 and the ball is snapped off a small blue cone into play.
California put together a combine to figure out how to best deploy the athletes, whether it was for quarterback, running back, wide receiver or a position on defense.
“We’re always thinking about new plays and new concepts,” California coach Mitch Mitchell said. “Really coming into this none of us knew what any of this was going to look like. We put the girls through different drills to see what their best respective skills were. I think we did OK in estimating where they might be best.”
Peters Township coach Kimberly Beaver played football for the Pittsburgh Passion and has enjoyed sharing her knowledge and watching girls who had no experience with football before develop as the season has progressed.
“I was humbled to learn how to break down the game to its simplest form to teach these girls,” Beaver said. “When I first talked to them I told them to go out there and play backyard ball and they were like ‘Coach we don’t even know what that means.’ They have really adjusted well and learned the game.”
Lamping and fellow captain Allison Oshnock were on the Peters Township girls volleyball team that won the first WPIAL championship in program history this fall.
That’s a sport they’ve played most of their lives. Learning a new sport in flag football has been a rewarding experience.
“It’s amazing, because almost none of our girls have played football before, so the first weeks of practice were a learning experience for all of us,” Lamping said. “Learning what a route looks like and how to break down on defense and we’re seeing that added to each of our games. We’re getting better each day.”
In recent years girls sports in the WPIAL have expanded to include wrestling and now flag football.
Girls wrestling has been a pretty big hit and now the hope is that flag football will catch on as well. Flag football will be in the Summer Olympics for the first time at the 2028 games in Los Angeles.
“I just wanted to give girls at our school another opportunity to play a sport,” Lamping said. “It’s such a new sport that you don’t have to have played it before, and I think that’s pretty special. Some girls have sports they have played their entire life and for others this is their first sport. Just the chance to go out there and play, be athletic and be competitive is cool.”
California shares athletes with other spring sports, which has helped their numbers, but has also hampered practice time. When California hosted Peters Township last month, several girls came from playing a softball game to the flag football game.
“You come out here on game day and play,” Mitchell said. “Most of my girls are playing at least a second or third sport between track, softball, club volleyball and AAU basketball.”
California doesn’t have a senior on its team, so there’s a chance to build together for a couple years.
“Hopefully we can get them together at some point in the offseason and maybe get started a little sooner,” Mitchell said. “Once you see how these games are played you start to get a feel for how things shake out on the field. Just having a year of experience under our belt hopefully will make a difference.”