This year’s Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) flag football state championships in Tampa held May 10-11 was as much about the venue as it was about the teams — four in Class 1A and four in Class 2A — that advanced to play in their respective competitions. As it turned out, one of the teams in the Class 2A bracket was Wellington High School, which defeated Fort Pierce Central High School in the Class 2A state quarterfinal, 12-7, on Friday, May 3 to earn a spot in Tampa.
Historically, the FHSAA flag football championships have been held on a high school campus in Florida, but this year, the event experienced a major upgrade. The venue for this year’s FHSAA championship flag football event was the expansive AdventHealth Training Center, which is the indoor practice facility for the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The colossal structure is a well-lit, indoor, air-conditioned environment with an artificial turf playing surface, where the Buccaneers’ logo adorns the middle of the field, while one of the walls is filled with a series of massive banners highlighting the Buccaneers’ many successes — including two Super Bowl wins in 2003 and 2021 — since their entry into the NFL in 1976.
As for Wellington’s girls varsity flag football team, the Wolverines faced the Longhorns from Lennard High School in Ruskin in the Class 2A semifinal on Friday, May 10. The kickoff was originally set for 7 p.m., but the game started late because the two previous Class 1A semifinal games ran longer than expected.
With Lennard as its opponent, Wellington faced a team that was a virtual twin of itself. Both teams had talented, strong-armed quarterbacks; both teams had an athletic corps of sure-handed receivers; both teams had aggressive, ball-hawking defenses; both teams had players who could rush the quarterback; and both teams were hungry to win.
Of all the semifinal games, the Wellington-Lennard game was expected to be the most competitive, and it didn’t disappoint.
As expected, both quarterbacks — Wellington’s Keelin Coleman and Lennard’s Abby Elwell — rose to the occasion and led by example. Coleman completed 19 of 28 passes for 259 yards, while Elwell completed 19 of 26 passes for 192 yards.
Also, the receivers made a series of incredible and, at times, acrobatic receptions, the defenses were defiant, and the pass rushers never stopped pursuing Coleman and Elwell.
For Wellington, Coleman led her team inside the red zone on two occasions in the first half, and into Lennard’s half of the field on three occasions in the second half. For the entire game, Lennard’s defense was defiant and kept the Wolverines out of the end zone.
As for Wellington’s defense, it was strong and determined, with the exception of one play. At the 9:28 mark of the second quarter, Elwell connected with teammate Kate Keith on a 17-yard touchdown pass. The one-point PAT attempt was successful, which gave the Longhorns a 7-0 lead, which they would never relinquish. That turned out to be the only touchdown of the game, with Lennard eventually winning, 7-0.
It’s ironic that Keith scored Lennard’s lone touchdown because she was the one who prevented Wellington from scoring a touchdown on its first drive of the game when she picked off a Coleman pass at the goal line to end what turned out to be Wellington’s most promising drive of the game.
“It was an incredible experience in Tampa,” said Robert Callovi, Wellington High School’s head flag football coach. “The Tampa Bay Bucs really support girls flag football better than anybody else. In the game, our girls gave their best effort, and they kept fighting to the very end. We didn’t give up and kept playing. We really loved the overall experience.”
Looking back, the Wolverines (15-4) had a memorable and historic season this spring. Under Callovi, Wellington recorded a series of significant first-time accomplishments, such as winning its first-ever regional championship (12-6 against Seminole Ridge High School on April 30), winning its first-ever state quarterfinal (12-7 against Fort Pierce Central on May 3), and advancing to the flag football state finals for the first time.
As for the Lennard Longhorns, which advanced to the Class 2A Championship Game on Saturday, May 11 against the Panthers from Miami’s Palmetto High School, it was possibly the most exciting game in the history of this FHSAA event, as the game featured many lead changes. In the end, Palmetto came from behind and defeated Lennard 26-25, scoring its winning touchdown on a 15-yard run with less than 10 seconds left in the game. Then, Lennard made a valiant attempt to win the game on the game’s final play, when the Longhorns had to go the length of the field with one catch and a series of laterals, only to be denied by a sideline flag pull deep in Palmetto’s half of the field.
“That Class 2A championship game was better than advertised and was possibly the most exciting high school flag football game that I have ever seen,” said Newsome High School head flag football coach Anthony Silvestri, who served as the color commentator for the NFHS Network’s livestream broadcast of the game.
In the Class 1A championship final, the Knights from Tampa’s Robinson High School won their eighth-straight Class 1A state title by defeating Pembroke Pines Charter School, 27-6.
