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The different features which make indoor flag football so much fun
2022-05-04
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The indoor flag football game is a somewhat different animal than the one which female high-school athletes throw themselves at in near record numbers each and every fall in Sudbury.

Some might even be inclined to suggest a more exciting version, if not a better alternative to the full field option that has garnered more than a little attention in recent years.

Those same folks might point to the recent 2022 Lancer Flag Football Showcase as Exhibit “A”, with tournaments on back to back weeks that would bring together no less than 16 junior and senior teams, with countless contests that would come right down to the wire, including a pair of championship finals decided in overtime.

That may have been more than event organizer and Lasalle Secondary educator Lance Patrie imagined. “We wanted to give the girls one more opportunity to play, looking at ways of growing the game in Sudbury,” he stated. ‘We wanted to keep it growing, keep that momentum, maybe attract a few more athletes from other sports who perhaps couldn’t play in the fall.”

Switching the field of play to a side to side version, now able to effectively split a standard football venue into three separate sections, all capable of hosting these mini-games, if you will, was something of a no-brainer.

“Having three games at a time really helps you run the event in just one school day,” said Patrie, with a junior tournament scheduled for April 21st and the senior event running exactly one week later. “The motivation for the rules comes through the adult flag football league in Sudbury.”

And therein lay the biggest benefit to fans of the game, the rapid back and forth of a sport now adapted such that every touchdown accounts for one point. No field goals, no rouges, no safeties: just a race to the end zone at an often frenetic pace.

“We knew that we would not be able to run our big running plays that we normally do,” noted Bishop Carter Gators multi-sport star Sierra Boyuk, named tournament MVP of the senior playdowns after scoring ten touchdowns (including the tournament winner in overtime) and recording an equal number of interceptions.

“We looked a lot more into throwing plays and just shortening up our actual game plays. It was definitely a lot different, considering the field size.” The championship affair would see the Gators edge the Horizon Aigles 3-2 in overtime, with BAC advancing to the final thanks to a 3-1 win over the Confederation Chargers while Horizon trimmed the host Lasalle Lancers 5-4 to punch their ticket in.

“I knew that we had a very strong team, but we were in Division B this year (outdoor flag football – fall of 2021) and a lot of the teams that we played in the tournament were A teams,” said Boyuk. “It may have helped us not playing these teams because they didn’t know our fast runners or our plays, so in that sense it might have helped.”

“I was extremely confident we could do well, but I was not expecting to win it.”

If the majority of their opponents were a little unfamiliar to the Gators, that would not be the case as they stepped on the field with everything on the line in the last game of the day. “We played Horizon in the city final (in the fall – Div B), and that went into overtime,” said Boyuk.

“We lost, so that was heartbreaking – but we saw this as our redemption. We played Horizon again and went into overtime, again. It was like déja-vu.”

And though the game was clearly more reliant on an adept aerial attack than the full field fall offering, the Gators went to their bread and butter plays when they needed it most. “We were about five yards from the end zone,” recalled Boyuk of her game-winning score. “We didn’t know what to do because they kept intercepting our throws.”

“I just had a gut feeling to run it in.”

Taking the handoff, Boyuk had anything but a clear path to paydirt. “There were about four girls on me so I just threw my body through them and hoped to cross the end zone on time – and luckily, I did.”

Besting their Valley rival (Horizon) that topped all entries by featuring no less than ten different players who recorded TD’s on the day, Boyuk and company were quick to share the accolades with the women who led the charge. “The biggest praise goes to our coaches (Kathleen Cameron, Katrina Shank, Laura Tagliafierro),” she said.

“They are all in it for the right reasons. They all played and they know how fun it is – but they train us really hard, we put in a lot of effort.”

The Gators winning roster also featured Breanna Coyne, C.J. Pardy, Naomi Schmid, Aimie Remillard, Mackenzie Purvis, Cameron O'Daiskey, Madison Mahon, Gracie Auger, Makayla Bertrand, Brianna Hotson, Kynlee Cresswell, Ella Caissie, Caedene Troscinski, Layne MacDonald, Haley MacDonald and Jillian Landry.

Also working a little overtime to achieve their end goal were the St Charles College Cardinal juniors, also 3-2 winners in their gold medal affair, slipping past the Bishop Carter juniors as Katelynn Jacques found the end zone on a lengthy pass and run play with QB Madison Hollohan.

“It was our last play, our last chance to score before the other team got the ball,” recalled Jacques. “We kind of did a free for all. We all just ran for the touchdown zone and she passed to whoever was open. I was kind of just running down the field and saw the ball coming over my head and I went for it.”

“I wasn’t prepared for it to be thrown at me.”

With 11 touchdowns on the day, Jacques topped all of the junior crew, earning the tournament MVP award in the process. Still, the natural athlete who also suits up with the Lady Wolves as well as being a key member of the St Charles soccer team noted that perhaps more than any other sport, flag football requires a complete team effort.

“Everyone has to be on board with the play, going to the right place in order to make it work,” said Jacques. “If everyone is criss-crossing, for instance, you’ve got to have the right timing. That worked well for us. If they were playing zone, we would be across the field and it would confuse them, making it really hard to cover us.”

Greater Sudbury Soccer Club