The Girls’ flag football team made steady improvement in their second match against the Burroughs Bears, but ultimately lost.
Story by Kamillah Morales
Staff Writer
On Thursday, Sept. 17, girls’ flag football lost 19-0 to the Burroughs Bears after having lost against them a week before. Despite the loss, the girls had great teamwork and are continuously improving.
“I think one of our biggest strengths is that we’re really just a family,” senior captain Kelsey West said. “All of us are very close. We’re like sisters, and I think that’s really what holds us to where we are.”
The Tigers started on offense for the first quarter. Thanks to their strong defense and far punts by freshman Amelia Erceg— who had even delivered a kick so good it was called “perfect” by head coach Jade Richard-Craven, South Pasadena was able to prevent Burroughs from scoring any touchdowns for nearly the entire quarter. Right when it seemed like the quarter would end 0-0, the Bears threw a far pass to their wide receiver who dashed past grabbing hands and scored a touchdown with 30 seconds left of the first quarter, upping the score to 6-0 with the Tigers trailing.
The Bears were blocking many of the Tigers’ passes in the second quarter. At one point, the Bears had even made an interception and nearly scored a touchdown until one of the Tigers swiftly pulled their flags nearly 10 yards away from the end zone. Despite being stopped, a touchdown seemed inevitable from how close Burroughs’ line of scrimmage was. Yet with South Pasadena’s solid defense and great block by sophomore Aliya Apriku, Burroughs failed to reach the end zone. The second quarter came and went with the Tigers still trailing 6-0.
South Pasadena started the third quarter strong as they pushed back Burroughs’ line of scrimmage in the first down. The Tigers were able to keep the Bears from scoring any further, but they hadn’t been able to score either. Even though they had strong efforts, it was still not enough.
“We held them until halftime at that six-point lead, and we were really close,” West said. “And I think that our defensive skills have gotten a lot better.”
The score began to lean more towards the Bears odds in the final quarter. Their quarterback threw a far pass to their wide receiver, who snagged the ball and ineveitably coasted into the end zone. Five minutes later, the same player scored another touchdown. Burroughs, feeling confident by their lead, tried for an extra point and succeeded. The score by the end of the game was 19-0.
“We only played them a week ago, and we’ve improved so much since,” West said. “ I think flag pulling is always going to be an issue, and also just figuring out the routes that we need to run, and kind of reading the defense because they’ll play you really close and they’re really quick. So I think we need to figure out how to combat that.”
The Tigers next game was away on Wednesday, Sept. 23 at 5 p.m. against the La Cañada Spartans.