FOOTBALL IS FOR GIRLS, a sign erected on the Hughes Middle School field proudly proclaimed on Saturday. Hughes was the site of the first ever Middle School Girls’ Flag Football tournament in Long Beach history. Many talented teams competed throughout the day, among them two from the hosting Owls, as well as Cubberley, Lindburgh, IVA, Newcomb, Stevens, and Stanford.
The tournament was spearheaded by Hughes teacher and coach Teri Collins and attorney Devon Lyon. Lyon’s companies, Lyon Legal and WorkSafe, alongside Trusted Investigations and Long Beach Friday Night Lights, sponsored the event, enabling participation fees to be waived for all athletes.
“We have so many girls that love the sport of football,” Collins said. “We had two girls on our co-ed football team here at Hughes, and we’ve been doing a lot of girls football stuff here the last couple of years, so I just knew there was a need for them to be able to compete.”
“Teri always wanted to put together a flag football tournament for middle school girls because the middle schools presently have co-ed teams, but they don’t have a league of their own. So we put this together as a way to try and spark an interest in the sport,” Lyon added. “We just wanted to have an event that really brought interest to the sports so that the girls would catapult this to possibly high school.”
The LA Rams participated in the event as well, as part of their initiative in creating greater opportunities for female flag football players. They funded the referees, contributed free swag for the athletes, provided several coaches on-site, and awarded Most Valuable Player chains to two players in the final.
Competitive games and squads loaded with talent could be seen duking it out on the field in all hours of the day. In the 8:30 AM games, the Hughes A team beat Cubberley 25-24, and Lindbergh shut out IVA with a 26-0 win. At 9:15, Stanford beat the Hughes B team 13-6, and Newcomb outscored Stephens 34-20. At 10 AM, Lindbergh and Hughes A took to the field again, ending in a 20-0 victory for the Owls, while Cubberley played a strong game against IVA, scoring 42 points to the Foxes’ 12.
At 11 AM, Hughes B dominated Newcomb in an impressive 40-0 win, and Stanford shut out Stephens 27-0. At 11:45 AM, Hughes A and IVA played the most high scoring matchup of the day, and the Owls emerged victorious 52-24. Cubberley and Lindburgh, meanwhile, had a fairly even battle that ended 32-26, with the Eagles up by one touchdown. In the 12:30 PM games, the last of group play, Hughes B beat Stephens 12-6 and Stanford defeated Newcomb in overtime, sending the Hawks through to the semifinals.
The semifinals were headlined by a Hughes civil war, as a faceoff between the Owls’ A and B squads resulted in a 40-6 win for their A team, whose roster also happens to be this year’s All City Division I Girls’ Basketball champions. On the other field, Stanford held on to beat Lindburgh 19-14 after a couple late touchdowns from the Eagles, setting up an intense final between two Division I powerhouses.
The championship game featured a surprisingly low scoring first half from the Owls and Hawks, as stellar defense on both sides secured multiple interceptions. Hughes scored the first touchdown of the game in the final minute and earned the extra point, putting them up 7-0 heading into halftime.
As the second half commenced, Hughes made a huge statement with a pick-six to make the score 13-0. They then caught two back to back interceptions and capitalized on them by scoring a touchdown both times, notching the scoreboard at 27-0. Although Stanford was able to get into the end zone twice at the end of the game to put up 12 points, the Owls’ lead proved to be too much for the Hawks’ to handle–the home team secured the title with a 27-12 win.
Although the actual football played was very impressive, in the long term, the event’s symbolic meaning and the opportunity it provided for girls to play and gain exposure to the sport was far more important.
“Tournament play is so much fun because they really can learn a lot by playing in multiple games in a day. They build upon what they learn as they play every game,” Lyon said. “There was a team that just finished out, they didn’t win any games, and every single girl on that team had never played in a flag football game. But this was their first time in the sport at all, and they did great, they had fun. It’s just an opportunity to try and get interest in the sport and so far, it’s been a huge success.”
As more events like this arise in the coming years, who knows where flag football could take local young female athletes. It’s been added as an official Moore League and CIF Southern Section sport and it’s confirmed to be one of the sports in the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games. Perhaps some of Long Beach’s own will get to make their Olympic debuts on home soil as football players.
One such athlete is Aaya McLyn, Long Beach Poly quarterback and DI soccer commit at Washington State. McLyn is a Hughes alum, and was out on the field all day, coaching her alma mater and ultimately leading the Hughes A team to the championship. McLyn’s passion and commitment to give back to the next generation displays the growing community that is being fostered around this new, rapidly expanding sport, which the tournament hopes to help manifest in its successive editions.
The ultimate goal of this event is to display the high interest in girls flag football in Long Beach. Presently, flag football in the middle school sports league is co-ed, which diminishes opportunities for girls to get to play. The hope is that the district could eventually establish a girls’ team, providing greater exposure to the sport in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, and increasing numbers on high school teams.
“Having it at the high school level and soon to be college level, I really wanted to get them in the experience,” Collins said. “Getting them more time to play and more experience will hopefully give our local high schools an opportunity to be successful too.”
