Revenge can be a powerful force in sports.
For the senior girls playing in last week’s Powder Puff football game, that emotion propelled them to one of the most commanding victories of the game’s recent history. Coming off of a game last year where their junior squad came a questionable holding call away from the trophy, the girls in this most recent game were determined to win – and close out their flag-football careers with a bang.
Their head coach, Mr. Green, who otherwise teaches marketing and coaches baseball while designing plays for his Powder Puff squad, said lots of work went into preparing for the match, including a strong practice schedule. “They practiced two to three times a week leading up to the game, and we worked on a lot of the fundamentals,” said Green. “They were all pretty experienced though, so once they got used to those skills and it got closer to the game we worked on more advanced skeleton plays so we could [best] prepare ourselves.”
For the girls on the team (many of whom had played in the previous year,) these practices were an opportunity to build on where their skills weren’t as strong in the last game. Said the team’s quarterback Rachel Carlton, “since last year it wasn’t our strongest point, we tried to do a lot of work on our offensive line. We drilled that a lot in practice, and we hopefully saw it transition to the game.”
Based on their performance in the game, the girls on the field for offense had certainly prepared well, as evidenced by their 37 points scored. The girls’ offense was so commanding, in fact, that they managed to score on every single drive, never having to punt once.
For the senior girls, who had been so thoroughly prepared for the game, their ease at scoring came at no surprise. What was somewhat unique, though, was how they went about that scoring. Although their original gameplan was centered around the passing game, and the accurate arm of their quarterback, Carlton, they wound up utilizing a lot more of the running game in response to the different defenses posed by their opponent juniors.
Much of this strategic planning was not even coached to the players by Green and his staff, but was rather a result of the instinct which so much time on the field had built up. Carlton, who scored three rushing touchdowns in the game, said that “it was pretty much natural to do the passing game once you realized how [the Juniors] were setting up their defense. You just had to look for the holes in their lines, and once you saw those it was easy to break through.”
According to Green, this behavior by the girls was not so much surprising as it was exemplifying of their independence and drive. “It was incredible to see the girls go out there and play that way. It goes to show what an awesome, pumped up squad we had,” Green said. “They were really a joy to coach.”
For these seniors, who likely had their last opportunity to play competitive football, getting such an exhilarating win put quite the exclamation point on their gridiron careers. As Green likes to remind himself, “the whole purpose of this game is to create an incredible experience for the girls. If we can do that, especially as the coaches, then we can go home feeling good about ourselves. And coming off this win to end their career, I think these girls can say they had a great experience.”
As for regrets on the game, Green said “it possibly could’ve been better, but we won, right?”
And win the game they did. Next year however, when Green returns to coach the next class of juniors for the game, he and his team will be up against something he’s all too familiar with: a senior class with aims at revenge.
