When Mariposa County High flag football coach Tammi Richards isn’t on the field, she finds plenty of other things in which to participate. That included the announcing duties last Saturday night during the portion of the Destruction Derby at the Mariposa County Fair where the youngsters get their crack at some fun. Photo by Mark Ruggiero
It’s always nice for teams to get off to a good start when league play begins.
That’s exactly what the Mariposa County High School flag football team did last week. The Grizzlies obliterated Waterford on Aug. 31, winning 40-0 on the road.
“We challenged the girls to make a statement as we opened league play. We wanted to show teams in our league what they can expect when they play us and they did just that,” said MCHS coach Tammi Richards.
The Grizzlies then went on to play another league game against Linden on Sept. 2. The Grizzlies smacked Linden 51-14.
“Outscoring Waterford and Linden to a combined score of 91-14 is one heck of a statement,” Richards said. “We have a motto of ‘never good enough.’ We want them continually fighting and competing from the first whistle to the last whistle.
The score is not as important to us as our standard of play — we want them playing with a lion’s mentality of always hunting, always making our presence known.”
Mariposa’s Alicia Garcia had an amazing game against Waterford, scoring multiple touchdowns as well as hauling in an interception. Bailey Costa was on point and in control of the offense throughout the game, Richards said.
And the defense obviously was strong, holding Waterford without a score.
“Our defense as a whole was stifling with numerous tackles made by Dakota Costa and Maryn Fluharty at rusher,” Richards said.
Linden is new to the league this year and had beaten Vanguard College Prep 51-7 two days prior.
“We didn’t know what to expect, but handled them fairly easily coming out ahead 51-14,” Richards said. “It was an opportunity to get all of our girls into the game including having sophomore Kaiya Wellcome come in as quarterback.”
On her first snap as quarterback in league play, Wellcome threw a 36-yard pass to Cora Grasso that resulted in Grasso then carrying the ball 44 more yards for a touchdown.
Another highlight was Annalee Blagg, who has never played flag before this season, scoring a touchdown.
Mariposa then played Madera on Sept. 3 in a non-league game at home. It was a tough battle back and forth throughout the entire game. Madera took the early lead 6-0. Mariposa then went up 7-6 on a Bailey Costa to Alicia Garcia connection and extra point.
With less than two minutes in the game, Madera took the lead again 12-7. Mariposa attempted to mount a comeback as the clock was dwindling away, coming up two yards short of touchdown for the win as the clock ran out.
“It was a great effort. We struggled with our tackles (flag pulls) this game and that was a big factor that contributed to our loss,” Richards said.
Mariposa will have a short break before playing at Riverbank on Sept. 16 at 6 p.m.
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