After five games last season, girls flag football was 2-3, and the offense had only scored 13 points. One season later, after a 12-0 win against East Ridge on Monday, they are 3-2, with a total of 83 points.

Coach Paul Cuozzo, leading both the varsity and the junior varsity team, is excited to see the team compete this season. 

“Compared to last year, they have a lot more confidence going into the season,” Cuozzo said.

With the leadership of the captains and coach Cuozzo, and the cooperation within the varsity team members, the team is constantly improving. Though the team started without Cuozzo, he helped the team to unite and gave the captains ideas of how to organize the team.

The team organized meetings right before the match to boost confidence, which they will also do before playing with Seminole and Lake Mary.

During the match, receiver Brooklyn O’Galliger scored twice with passes from senior quarterback Courtney Dusart. Team cooperation and rotation is one of the major focuses for the team towards winning.

Senior Kayla Rrapi, one of the team leaders, plays as middleline linebacker and corner. She leads the team with other leaders, and communicates with the teammates. She achieves a better result due to her relatability to her teammates.

“So our coach, instead of letting all of us play the entire game, he stretches us out really frequently, even like the best players, [so that] we all get a break to rest physically and mentally so that we can go into the next play with a fresh mindset,” Rrapi said.

When Dusart started as a receiver, she lacked the confidence of a quarterback, but she currently plays an important role in the team, being more cooperative with her teammates and contributing to the overall status of the team.

“I felt [being on the team was] intimidating at first, but now I feel very confident and I can bring my team up,” Dusart said.

So far, the team has had three shutouts, including Tuesday against East Ridge, and Cuozzo credits this to the triangular trap defense. The scheme uses rotating members, distributing the defense to each person, rather than everyone trying to do it all. It also depends on communications in the team, with in-team alternations.

“The girls bust their butts, and they work really hard for what they’re doing, so I’m proud of them,” Cuozzo said. 

After this match, there will be two big matches coming up against Seminole and Lake Mary. The team won against Seminole for the first time last year in the last 20 seconds, with Dusart getting a pick six interception, and quickly turning it into a touchdown, which brought the team to victory of 13-6.

This is the first year for varsity and JV to be separated into two individual teams. As the JV separated out for matches, they were still attached as a whole team to learn from and practice with the varsity members.“We’re one team, one family, one united front,” Cuozzo said.