Youth Football: No skirting this team’s success

There are the dazzling touchdown runs, precise ballhandling and, of course, dogged defense. But perhaps the most distinctive thing about the first-place team in the Newport-Mesa Friday Night Lights first- and second-grade Blue Division flag football league is that the center practices in a skirt.

Lark Walz is one of eight second-grade girls on the team known as the Oklahoma State Cowboys (er, Cowgirls) that has compiled a 7-0-1 record against boys teams and is primed for the upcoming playoffs. The Newport Beach-based squad, coached by Theo Rokos, will wrap up its regular season on Nov. 7 with a Blue Division championship showdown against the TCU Horned Frogs (7-1) at 5 p.m. at the Jack Hammett Sports Complex in Costa Mesa.

If victorious, the Cowboys, whose Blue Division is considered a notch below the Elite Division, will likely compete against the top teams from the Elite Division in the Gold Division playoffs, Rokos said. The opponents in whatever playoff division the Cowgirls are placed, figure to face a formidable challenge.

“It’s a great little group of girls that has competitive greatness,” said Rokos, 40, who played football, basketball and baseball at Corona del Mar High in the early 1990s. “They do not like to lose.”

The drive that allows them to consistently humble their male peers helped first initiate the formation of the team, which practices weekly in Corona del Mar.

“Most of the girls had older brothers who were on a flag football team that I coached,” Rokos said. “[The younger sisters] started coming up to me two years ago and asking ‘When do we get to play?’ I think at first, people were answering them by saying that girls didn’t really play football. But these girls were not going to take that for an answer.”

The girls, most of whom were already playing competitive soccer and other sports like water polo, were largely unfamiliar with football. But their athleticism and competitiveness has enabled them to literally run past their competition.

“It’s pretty funny, because when it started, I thought it would be fun and a nice character builder for the girls,” Rokos said. “But when we started looking at their skills, we realized that there are four girls who are about as fast as any kid I’ve seen at that age. Cameron Chalmers [who along with Alexa Rokos forms the one-two backfield punch that scores most of the touchdowns] is one of the fastest humans I’ve seen in the second grade.”

And while flag football limits physical contact, Theo Rokos said the girls don’t shy away from any physical challenge.

“If you put helmets on some of our girls, I’d be worried about the boys,” Rokos said.

Chalmers, whose father, Evan Chalmers, coaches baseball at Newport Harbor High, and Alexa Rokos start at running back, while Didi Evans is the quarterback.

Olivia Morris and Grace Audiss start at receiver in the six-player alignment that includes Walz at center. Walz’s father, J.R. Walz, was an All-CIF Southern Section running back at CdM High and played collegiately at Holy Cross.

Angelina Espinoza and Geneva Paz also play regularly in an offensive scheme that utilizes motion and deception to accentuate the players’ speed.

“We do a lot of misdirection,” Theo Rokos said. “We run sweeps, a reverse sweep out of motion and a lot of criss-cross stuff in the backfield. We also throw the ball about 20% of the time and we throw passes off of reverses.”

While a recent practice revealed the attention spans typical of second-graders, Rokos said his players respond well to the elevated atmosphere of games.

“They really do have that thing where the lights turn on and they just go,” said Rokos, who is bolstered by assistant coaches Morgan Evans and Steve Espinoza. “Once they get in the huddle, there is no messing around. And, I think they look across the line and see boys and they are like, ‘All right, we don’t want to lose to the boys.’”

But while winning is important, success on the scoreboard is clearly a byproduct of their greater desire to simply play the game.

“What I like best about playing football is that I’m with my friends and that it is fun and enjoyable,” said Didi Evans, whose uncle, Matt Evans, played quarterback at CdM High 20-plus years ago.

Morris, whose father, Billy Morris, played shortstop at USC in the early 1990s, said she and her teammates take pride in representing their gender.

“I like [playing football] because it shows that it’s not just a boys’ sport,” Olivia Morris said. “I feel like I can do it and [boys] aren’t the only ones who can play football.”

The girls’ parents aren’t the only ones who are rooting for them on Friday nights, Rokos said.

“They are fun to watch and they have developed a little following of [parents and kids] who stay after their games to watch our team,” Rokos said. “I think even the moms from the opposing team are cheering for us under their breath.”