JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – In a moment of first that keeps on happening in the Girls Flag Football landscape in Florida and across the nation, the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Jacksonville Jaguars Community Foundation, and the Jacksonville Jaguars PREP teamed up with us here at FloridaHSFootball.com to help Jaguars PREP launch the first-ever Jaguars PREP Girls Flag Football All-Prep Team.
The Jaguars PREP Girls Flag Football ALL-PREP Team recognizes 14 of the top Girls Flag Football athletes in the Jacksonville area from the 2021-2022 season for their efforts on and off the field.
The first 14 players selected to the Jaguars PREP Girls Flag Football ALL-PREP Team are represented by 7 different programs from Clay and Duval counties and met at the Academy Sports + Outdoors in Jacksonville’s Southside to take part in the recognition for the team, a photoshoot with customized Jaguars jerseys with their name and number on them, plus received a $200 shopping spree to help get some gifts for their mom on Mother’s Day while Jaguars linebacker Tyrell Adams and defensive tackle Jay Tufele were on hand to the special occasion.
Without further ado here is the Jaguars PREP Girls Flag Football ALL-PREP Team
LB/WR Courtney Brown, Jacksonville Stanton –
QB/S Charlee Evoniuk, Jacksonville Stanton –
RUSH Desiree Hall, Middleburg –
C/LB Annalee Harbison, Green Cove Springs Clay –
ATH Tremesha Harris, Jacksonville Ed White –
QB Dakota Hills, Green Cove Springs Clay –
WR/LB Ellie Jackson, Jacksonville Mandarin –
QB/DB Mykayla Maddox, Fleming Island –
QB Endia Maxwell, Ed White –
LB Myla Queen, Jacksonville Sandalwood –
SLOT/WR/LB Laura Palagyi, Middleburg –
QB Ashley Purdy, Jacksonville Sandalwood –
QB Ashley Smith, Jacksonville Mandarin –
QB/DB Brooke Swenson, Middleburg –
And it wouldn’t be a true recognition of the top girl’s flag football players in the region without recognizing a Player of the Year and a Coach of the Year.
Brooke Swenson, a senior from Middleburg High won the first-ever Jaguars PREP Girls Flag Football ALL-PREP Team Player of the Year Honors. Swenson currently has thrown for over 2,000 yards this season, over 40 touchdown passes, and has helped lead the Broncos to the regional finals in Class 1A-Region 1 for the second straight season where they will take on Fort Walton Beach Choctawhatchee at Alan Powers Field in Middleburg on Monday night.
Middleburg head coach and athletic director Jay Stilianou took home the first-ever Coach of the Year award for the Jaguars PREP Girls Flag Football ALL-PREP Team. Stilianou who is in his second year as head coach and athletic director at Middleburg received a $1,500 grant from the Jacksonville Jaguars Community Foundation for being name Coach of the Year.
Both Swenson and Stilianou received a customized pair of cleats in a trophy box that recognizes their Player of the Year and Coach of the Year Awards.
You can hear more from Swenson and Stilianou regarding their wards along with Desiree Hall and Laura Palagyi about their honors to the team as well as talking about their 14-6 win over Tallahassee FAMU DRS from Thursday night in the video below:
FloridaHSFootball.com Founder & Publisher Joshua Wilson has seen the growth of the sport of girls’ flag football take leaps and bounds since adding girl’s flag football coverage to the website starting in the 2015-2016 school year.
“The sport of girls flag football has been fascinating to watch as the sport has grown in Florida over the last 7-8 years with new schools adopting the sport and schools adding the sport to grow the presence and just how incredible of a sport it is for the ladies to be able to play football along with their male counterparts in tackle football,” Wilson said.
Wilson also remembers when girl’s flag football was just a pipe dream as a college sport, now something that has become a reality over the last few years.
When FloridaHSFootball.com started covering flag football full time in the 2015-2016 school year, the dream of flag football being a college scholarship sport was still very much a pipe dream, but now as we wrap up the 2021-2022 school year scholarship offers to play college flag football are a reality including many of those on the first-ever Jacksonville Jaguars ALL-PREP Girls Flag Football Team.”
Adriel Rocha, director of the Jacksonville Jaguars Community Foundation, has been instrumental in making sure local athletes in both tackle and now flag football gets the recognition they deserved and appreciated the help FloridaHSFootball.com provided to make this happen.
“We are thankful for the opportunity to acknowledge these young athletes in such a unique and exciting way. All 14 athletes, their coaches, and their parents were on site for the recognition. To be able to reward these deserving athletes, our 2022 Coach of the Year and our 2022 High School Player of the Year in the same capacity as we recognized our Varsity Football ALL-PREP Team in 2021 was very fulfilling,” Rocha said.
And Rocha recognized just how much girl’s flag football is growing not just in Florida, but in the nation.
“Girl’s flag football is growing state and nationwide, and we wanted to bring a top-tier recognition platform for our local athletes,” Rocha said.
Wilson is appreciative of the Jaguars PREP team for asking FloridaHSFootball.com to be a part of this collaborative effort in the girl’s flag football space.
“The future is bright for girl’ss flag football, and I cannot thank Adriel Rocha and the Jaguars PREP team enough for asking us to help collaborate in this historic moment to give the girl’s flag football in the Jacksonville market the recognition it truly deserves and hopefully serves as a springboard for other NFL teams to do recognition of the amazing athletes in girls flag football in the future,” Wilson said.
