By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
SALEM, Ore.– Sprague junior Kirra Cloyd was on the forefront of getting the Sprague Girls Flag Football team up and running last Spring.
It was kind of like a trial run for the Olympians, who started practice before their first game last year and played in four games before the season ended for the squad. It was a good learning experience for the upstart program, who return for their second season this year with a full slate of games scheduled.
“I kept hearing girls from my school, ‘oh I wish I could be out there’ and same with me. I’ve always wanted to be out on the field and be pretty good at it too and once I heard that there might be a team, I was like ‘ok, who’s ready. I want to get this going’,” Cloyd said. “(Head Coach Efrain) Guzman and me helped build up the team and this is the most girls that we ever had. We worked so hard to get our name known, put it out there to the Student Body and to recognize us like this as a sport, we’re working as hard as other people do out here for their sports.”
There were about 22 kids out for practice on Tuesday evening. Guzman, who also coaches with the Varsity Football team at Sprague and was the former Sprague-South Salem Boys Lacrosse Head Coach, a position he held until this season, spoke about how last year’s team were the ‘Pioneers’ in getting the program going with all the first’s. The first reception, the first rushing or receiving touchdown, the first to catch a pass or throw a touchdown pass.
Now with several of them returning with a few more faces adding on to the point that they’ll have a JV and a Varsity squad, the growth in the program was astronomical points Guzman.
“Just the climb alone is astronomical and to see the development with these girls. We have a lot more athlete’s out here this year, not saying they weren’t last year, they were phoenomal last year. They were the pioneers and there’s a lot of firsts that those girls are going to hold onto throughout their whole lives when they have kids,” said Guzman.
At the beginning of the school year, Girls Flag Football joins Boys Volleyball, also played in the Spring, as ‘Emerging’ Sports as Girls Flag Football made the jump from eight teams in 2023 to 32 in 2024. Not to mention that several kids on the Olympians do juggle other extracurricular activities like Softball or Track on top of playing Flag Football.
And as Sprague opens up the season next week, their JV squad going first on March 19 at McNary before their Varsity faces South Salem on March 20, the Olys know they’ll have some tough challenges with some of the local squads. The Saxons were experienced last year with their Air Raid offense and the Celtics were physical in their play. But they’re hoping that their first full off-season of training and preparation will help them for those two tough challenges, plus everyone else on their schedule this Spring.
“South was definitely our biggest opponent last year. They did graduate a lot of girls, but they do have two, three years under their belt compared to us. We only have one, not even really, we didn’t really have any games last year. But the fact that we’ve been out here for two months has gotten us ahead of the game from where we were at last season,” Cloyd said. “McNary, they’re physical. But the girls who’ve came out this year, we got some spunk, we’re going to be ready.”
