For the Piedmont High School flag football team, the big moment came in a game against San Leandro back in September.
“We were winning, then we were going to lose, then there were 30 seconds left and we scored a touchdown,” receiver Dorothy Nemeth said. “It showed we could get our mentality together and come through. I think we all locked in and realized if we try now, we’ll be happy with the results. At that point, it didn’t matter if we won or lost. Every play we got yardage.”
With the clock running down, the players called their own plays on the drive. Nemeth called four of them with quarterback Edie Elmquist.
This is the future of the sport. As more girls play at younger ages, they’ll gain the experience to play at a higher level when they get to high school.
“We turned it from the first year of a girls sport that now is an athletic program,” Highlanders coach Beth Black said. “Last year, we were starting with girls that had never touched a football. You say go run a nine and they don’t know what you’re talking about.
“I’ve got some great young talent, amazing young talent that’s going to reshape this program.”
One of those will be Elmquist, a freshman who took over the quarterback spot. Juniors Dahlia Osman and Elsbeth Grippando anchor the defense. Osman is a ball hawk in the secondary and Grippando emerged as the team’s best pass-rusher.
The team closed the season Oct. 23 with a 16-14 win at Arroyo to finish 6-10 overall, 5-8 in West Alameda County Conference play. The WACC expanded to 10 teams this year as more schools are adding programs. Black said the team plans to participate in offseason tournaments this year, which will only help.
“There’s some tournaments coming up and they want to do that,” she said. “Football is not just your secondary sport. We may see that next year when girls say ‘this in my primary sport’.”
Nemeth, along with Alma Ruberto, are seniors who served as captains this year. They’re excited for the future of the program as well.
“With Edie as a freshman, she’s going to be an anchor for this team,” Ruberto said. “Looking at JV, they had a really strong team that’s dedicated to the sport. I think they will be a really strong team the next couple of years.”
She added, “Just last week, Dorothy and I and a couple of others went over to Havens Elementary and played a blacktop game with some fifth graders. I thought it was cool to talk to them because it seemed like the first time they had seen older players playing the sport.”