Mahtomedi defeats La Crescent-Hokah, taking the girls flag football state championship

“This can go in your office!” shouted Mahtomedi freshman Peyton Birch, dragging a poster board, larger than her, toward the Zephyrs girls flag football team and head coach Nick Sullivan.

On the poster was Monday’s bracket, which showed the remnants of the No. 1-seeded Zephyrs’ afternoon at TCO Stadium. A 32-point quarterfinal win over Bloomington. A semifinal win by the same margin over Park of Cottage Grove. And finally, a victory over La Crescent-Hokah, 36-20, for something completely new to the school: a flag football state championship.

The poster was just the start. “We better get a banner in the gym,” said Sullivan, and the girls cheered.

Girls flag football is not yet a sanctioned Minnesota State High School League sport, but the Minnesota Vikings — who funded last year’s four-team pilot season and this year’s expanded 51-team league — hope that one day it will be.

When the league looked to expand to more schools this year, the Zephyrs knew they wanted in. Fifty-one girls signed up, enough to form two additional junior varsity teams.

“We knew right away that we were going to have athletes,” Sullivan said. “It was just trying to figure out how long it would take for them to assimilate to the game. … And after the first week, we knew we had something special.”

A core group of Mahtomedi’s state champion girls soccer team signed up to play, and in Monday’s state title game, Sophia Peer — senior midfielder turned gridiron star — grabbed four touchdown passes from senior quarterback Rylee Bogren.

“The environment was super cool, everyone was rowdy,” Peer said. “I never would have thought this would happen, winning state.”

A school shy of 400 students, La Crescent-Hokah was one of the four pilot teams last year, breaking down their huddles with “Pioneers” instead of Lancers in that first season, which also ended in a runner-up finish, to Rosemount. The Lancers took a slight edge into halftime Monday, 20-18, thanks to quarterback Eve Cody’s aerial connection with Savannah Klinski and Brooklyn Mitchell.

But Mahtomedi played shutdown defense and managed 18 unanswered points in the second half, and Peer snagged two interceptions in the final five minutes. A running clock made the final moments of the fast-paced 40-minute game flash by until senior Presley Albers scored the game-clinching touchdown for the Zephyrs.

“I’m a defender for soccer, and so I was like, ‘I kind of want to score some touchdowns,’ ” Albers said. “We kind of started playing … just because we wanted to be with each other, but we really got into it.”

All 51 teams’ flag journeys began back in late April with the first of four regular-season Sunday doubleheaders, which were followed by section playoffs and then Monday’s state tournament — a 12-team event that narrowed down its field in a series of games from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Lancers coach Terry Donovan has already seen growth in the game since La Crescent-Hokah competed for a state title with just three other schools last year.

“The competition every week got better and better,” Donovan said. “It’s edge-of-your-seat football.”