By Brittany Bowyer
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How many years have you been the head coach at XCP?
“This is my second year. Three years ago I was at Valley Christian as a Defensive Coordinator, and then this will be my second year.”

How long have you been coaching flag football overall?
“Eight years. I started with boys, and then girls for the last five or six years.”

How did you become the coach at Xavier? They like to hire a lot of alumnae, and you are not an alumn.
“So I went to Brophy. I graduated from Brophy in ‘98. They posted the job and I had coached before and had some success. My daughter was going to be starting here in the fall, and I kind of maintained some relationships with members of the administration. I hope I was more hired on my merit, but it doesn’t hurt. Sometimes it’s who you know, too.”

Who are some of your top returning players?
“So Evie Maas is coming back for her sophomore year. She had 1,300 yards and 16 touchdowns last year as a freshman, and just played for Team USA’s 15U team that won the gold at the World Games in June. Molly Lim is coming back, is going to play some quarterback for us. Madie Endredy, Mae Rawls on defense. So, we’re a really young team. Primarily sophomores, and now freshmen, but we’re really excited because it’s an opportunity for them to be a part of the system for the next three years.”

Who are some of the newcomers we should keep our eyes on this season?
“I would say, there’s some players like Giselle Robinson-Walwyn, Sloan Hjermstad, and Elle Hopkins. Those are all three freshmen that we’re really excited about on offense and defense this year.”

What do you think your team’s best attribute will be this season?
“I think our team’s best attribute is going to be our team speed. I think, overall, physically our team speed is going to be something that allows us to make a lot of plays and hopefully impact the game in a big way with that.”

What are you and your team looking forward to this season?
“At this point in the season, we’re just excited about playing our first game and getting our season started. I think we’re looking forward to some of the younger players getting a chance to step up and move into leadership roles because we had 11 seniors last year that we graduated. So we’re looking for a lot of those sophomores, and even some of the juniors, to step up and fill those leadership roles on the field.”

What are your goals for this year?
“Goals for this year’s squad is going to be to continue to make progress from game one to game 12, and then into the playoffs. I think we’re going to be a vastly different team from game one to game 12 because of our youth and because of the learning curve and the experience they’re going to gain throughout the year."

Brittany Bowyer is a Report for America corps member, covering sports for Independent Newsmedia in Arizona. Report for America places talented journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and regions.