Photo by Jenne Katsoupas
2024 NJSYFL Girls Flag Football Champions
Submitted by Keith Applegate
“Be a part of history!” was the headline calling out on the Berkeley Heights PAL website. The call went out to local girls age 11-14 yearning to play football. After 51 years of existence, the New Jersey Suburban Youth Football League (NJSYFL) opened the door to girls to play flag football with games commencing in Spring 2024. The “door” couldn’t hold back the girls or the excitement of playing flag football in actual league sanctioned competition. The response in the surrounding communities was more than you could imagine – some towns were overwhelmed with signups and fielded multiple teams in the 2 age divisions.
The NJSYFL has a 12U and 14U division and fielded 8 and 7 teams, respectively. In the 12U division, Berkeley Heights and Summit/New Providence fielded 3 teams each with Bloomfield and West Orange rounding out the division. In the 14U division, West Orange fielded 3 teams, Summit/New Providence 2 teams with Berkeley Heights and Bloomfield one team each. The 12U Berkeley Heights teams were named the Blitzers, Bombers and Pink Panthers. The 14U Berkeley Heights team were aptly named – the Lady Highlanders.
The Inaugural Flag football games took place on April 13th commencing a 6-week regular season. As the games began – “her-story” was made with plenty of “firsts”. First coin toss, play, drive, turnover, fumble, down, run, pass, completion, touchdown, extra point, victory and defeat. The smiles on the girls faces couldn’t be stopped – they couldn’t even be contained. As the season progressed, each team played host to the week’s slate of games and all girls who participated in the league received medals for making her-story and commemorating the Inaugural NJSYFL Girls Flag Football season.
After the 6-game regular season ended, a 4-team playoff ensued. In the 12U division, the Berkeley Heights Bombers and Pink Panthers qualified for the playoffs – each going 4-2 in the regular season – finishing the regular season in 3rd and 4th, respectively. The Blitzers record was 2-4, finishing in 6th place. The Lady Highlanders finished the season 2-4 as well good for 6th place in the 14U division.
Photo by Tiffany Aballo
In the semi-finals, the 4th seeded Pink Panthers knocked off the No.1 seed (and previously unbeaten) Bloomfield by a score of 13-12, fending off a late 2-point conversion for the victory. Meanwhile, the 3rd seeded Bombers took care of business by easily dispatching of No. 2 West Orange 27-13, setting up an all-Berkeley Heights championship showdown on June 8th in West Orange.
With the championship set, the game merely determined which Berkeley Heights team was to wear the first 12U Flag Football crown. The bigger impact was the positivity injected into the communities where families, friends, relatives, coaches and officials cheered on their daughters, nieces, cousins and friends real playing flag football games. But, the biggest winners of all were the hundreds of girls who participated in the inaugural flag football season games this spring – where the girls were able to express themselves and show off their athletic prowess all the while showing sportswomanship.
Since the championship game was all-Berkeley Heights affair, many of the girls play with each other in different sports (for example: soccer, softball, basketball, etc.). On top of this, nearly all of the girls go to school each other. Therefore, the girls were very familiar with one other and played each other very tough. Coronation day featured a bright blue sky with patchy clouds with a slight breeze. The wind was just enough to have an affect – especially on deep passes – forcing teams to rely on ground game or throw short-to-mid range passes.
The game itself was tight – coaches were digging deep into their playbook to try and uncork a big play. In the first half, no one was able to do so and the inaugural championship game went into halftime tied 0-0. To start the second half, the Berkeley Heights Pink Panthers started with the ball and found a play which broke the game open. A Pink Panthers RB took an inside hand off and zig-zagged 40-yards with the games only score. The Berkeley Heights Bombers had numerous drives inside the Pink Panthers 10-yard line, but were unable to push a score across. As the clock was winding down, the Bombers called a time out with 0:01 left on the clock. The Bombers lined up – took one last shot with a medium pass down the left sideline, but alas the pass fell incomplete. With the incompletion, the first season of Girls Flag Football came to an end. The Pink Panthers won the game 6-0, began to celebrate their championship and were awarded the First NJSYFL Girls Flag Football trophy.
As word gets out about the success of the NJSYFL girls flag football league, more town, teams, divisions and girls are sure to participate and raise the level of the game. As a community we all benefit from supporting girls playing flag football. Be on the lookout for more girls signing up, wearing jerseys and more pigskins being tossed around by our daughters and their friends in neighborhoods from now on.
For more information on Girls Flag Football please visit the NJSYFL website at njsyfl.com or Berkeley Heights PAL at bhpal.org.
