King Captures School’s First CPL Girls Flag Football Title

By Joey Gelman | Photos By Jim Vincent

It is hard to have the name King High School while still waiting to receive your crown. That all changed, however, at Rockne Stadium on October 3, as the Jaguars captured their first-ever Chicago Public League Girls Flag Football Championship, a coronation years in the making.

“I really don’t have words,” Head Coach Daniel Moore said. “We’ve come up short the last two years, it’s really true what they say, you have to learn how to lose before you learn how to win. We went into the last two playoffs as the best team in the city and came up short. So it feels so gratifying and validating to finally get it done.”

When Flag Football launched in 2021, King was one of the first teams to sign up, building a strong foundation at the school through dedicated students and staff, providing the girls with a life-changing opportunity.

“I think it’s beautiful at King,” Moore said. “We have 800 students, and consistently being able to compete with these bigger schools, it just proves that when you come together, work hard and you stay with it, anything is possible, it just means so much. We’ve been speaking all year about being focused and intentional, sticking together… there are girls that could play anywhere but they bought into what we are trying to do here, and that is why we’re here.”

King matched up against its neighborhood rival, the Kenwood Broncos, in this year’s title game, and the game lived up to the hype.

With packed stands on both sides of the stadium, the stage was set for an exciting and energized game, deservedly showcasing their skills under the “Friday Night Lights.”

In the first quarter, senior King quarterback Nyra Neal, who finished with 146 passing yards, 114 rushing yards and two touchdowns, used her speed for a rushing touchdown to put the Jaguars on the board first, using big completions and her legs on their opening offensive drive.

Asked what she saw on her touchdown run, Neal had the perfect answer, “wide open,” she said. “I said you better run, you better get it.”

Sophomore Kaleeya Anderson made her presence felt early on defense, recording a key interception early on top of her eventual four tackles and sack throughout the rest of the game.

However, the Broncos would bounce back, tying up the game with an 80+ yard touchdown catch and run by freshman Amber Nash (127 yards receiving, 1 touchdown).

With the score tied 6-6 at halftime, the third quarter began back-and-forth with another rushing touchdown for Neal and the Jaguars, only to be followed by a highlight-reel over-the-shoulder touchdown catch for the Broncos’ Sheena Boykins from freshman quarterback Kerry Hopewell (146 yards passing, 2 touchdowns) to bring the score to a 13-12 King lead.

The fourth quarter proved to be the most exciting as King senior running back Janyla Lee ran for a 30+ yard touchdown to make the score 20-12, but Kenwood drove all the way down the field on their next possession and had a fourth and goal with just seconds left, to potentially score a touchdown and convert a 2pt conversion to tie.

Everything King had worked for came down to one final play.

“Our motto was finish everything,” Moore emphasized. “It’s a mentality that you preach, so when you get out here on the field and it comes down to a city championship moment, you have the opportunity to finish the game.”

And that is exactly what the Jaguars did. A forced incomplete pass on the Broncos’ fourth-down play created the turnover on downs, securing the historic title for King.

“Just because we beat them before, doesnt mean we can beat them again,” Anderson said. “Kenwood came back strong, they did some fantastic things on the field, but we worked with them… focus, that’s what it is, focus.”

As the final horn sounded, Moore sprinted as fast as he could to the goal post and climbed it and hung from the post like a monkey bars in celebration.

“I just wanted a piece of that, this is history for us,” he said. “Just wanted to climb there and hang for a second. That was me just letting all the hard work out. It was just me and that goalpost. The girls will tell you, that’s the energy I bring and the joy I have in coaching them.”

“It feels great, I feel amazing,” Neal said. “We made a promise to our coach that we were going to get this, and we did it. I feel like crying, but I ain’t gonna cry right now, I’ll cry when I get home.”

“This means so much to me,” said Anderson. “We’ve been waiting on this, we said we were going to get it, and we did.”

Anderson, who is just a sophomore, reflected on what this journey meant to her.

“My team, they’ve taught me so much,” she said. “This was my first time really playing varsity, and I feel like I stepped up, and I did a lot and we worked hard for this, we stuck together. “

King’s season continues into the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) state tournament and the team is following Anderson’s motto.