New flag football team at Maples Collegiate

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This article was published 24/01/2020 (2418 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Female athletes at Maples Collegiate now have the opportunity to play flag football on their own team.

In the past, any girls interested in competing in the sport had only one option: join the boys’ team, though that often led to minimal time on the field.

“They underestimate us a lot because, I guess, it’s a male-dominated kind of sport,” Jorja Pilgrim, a Grade 9 student who plays centre, said.

Ten girls showed up for the team’s first practice earlier in January. The team now has nine players.

Although it was too late to join Football Manitoba’s girls’ high school flag league which began in November, the team was able to kick off its inaugural season with PIT Football.

PIT Football is partnered with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and the Winnipeg High School Football League and is the only league that offers four seasons of football, including both indoor and outdoor.

The team plans to enrol in the regular high school league when the next season rolls around.

The Marauders competed in their first game on Jan. 18 at the Winnipeg Soccer Federation North complex in Garden City. They fell 25-0 to The Kelly’s.

“It was really intimidating because it was our first game, especially because we played against the females who are the best of their league,” Pilgrim said. “We tried our best and that’s all we could really count on but going forward we just have to work more together as a team.”

Pilgrim’s brother, Draygan, happens to be the team’s head coach. He initiated the boys flag program in 2018 and currently coaches the school’s tackle football team.

“Right now our offence is too advanced, we need to simplify it for them and try to bring it back to the basics to make everything as basic as possible so they know what they’re doing because a lot of them are new to football in general,” he said.

Malayna Tokarz, a quarterback in Grade 10, has a background in rugby which inspired her interest in flag football.

“There’s definitely a lot we need to work on, and I guess memorizing all the plays and how to do them properly, like hand-offs, and how to make it look really good; definitely throwing and just making sure everybody has a person they’re watching so they don’t get intercepted,” she said.

For a full game schedule, visit www.pitfootball.com