Flag Football is a new sport at Lompoc High school. As the only high school in the central section. We are very excited to have a step in the door for women’s sports. No more than 7 girls are on the field playing the game. They wear a belt with 3 detachable attachments that replace a tackle or a down. When pulled if the ball was continually carried it would stop at that point the tab was taken and make a “down”.
A few differences between flag and regular football are a shorter field instead of the 100 yard field commonly played in football; flag football has an 80 yard field with a 10 yard decrease on each side. There are no tackles in flag football, in fact, any purposeful physical contact is a penalty that results in a flag. These actions may include tackling, swatting of hands as to not pull their tabs, or fighting which is not allowed in either flag or regular football. Made known to our attention, spinning used as a way to weave between players on the field is also illegal in flag football. Since these girls do not wear helmets or pads they are more prone to injury with physical contact. Spinning can cause unintended collision and without these forms of protection can result in concussion and other injuries. To keep this from happening, spinning is illegal.
Now on to our team themselves the team consists of 24 players, and 4 captains 1 captain from each grade level since there are no freshmen, JV, or Varsity teams. Samantha Rygoza (Senior), Ava Gallegos (Junior), Terra Terrones (Sophomore), Madison Caballero (Freshmen). They had a quick practice season starting in June, Coach Coelho was joined by both Mr. and Mrs. Terrones. This is not just a sport many of these girls aren’t just playing the game but having a good time. Almost every picture taken included smiles all the way around whether it was teammates cheering their team on or players on the field feeling their hard work payoff. Hard work is an understatement to the dedication these girls have put in the past 4 months, 4 days a week for 2-3 hours a day. “My favorite moment of the game was our first touchdown and how excited we all got. The win was also a really great feeling.” – Tara Terrones, Many of the girls on the team would say they felt the same. Our first home game score was 19-12. Good Job girls and good luck to the games to come.
