Girls’ flag football has grown rapidly in recent years across the United States, and that progression has reached Northern Virginia.
This fall, all four Winchester and Frederick County high schools will feature school-sponsored girls’ flag football teams for the first time, creating increased visibility and opportunity for the sport in the area.
A key reason for this step forward is a two-year partnership with the Washington Commanders, who signed on to support 51 more high school flag football teams across the state after beginning with 51 last school year. The four local high schools are among those that will be partnered with the Commanders during the 2026-27 and 2027-28 school years.
Last fall, RISE Flag in Winchester ran a league where girls could compete for their high school, placing players on Handley, James Wood, Millbrook and Sherando-branded rosters. While Millbrook provided field space for RISE, the league’s teams weren’t actually affiliated with the schools.
Pioneers’ coordinator of student activities Jared Uhler said the biggest change over the past year has been receiving buy-in from every Northwestern District school, which allowed the 12-school district to move forward with organizing school-sponsored 7v7 teams, tryouts and schedules.
He also said the Commanders’ contributions, which include providing balls, flags, uniforms, equipment and an additional $3,000 in grant funding to each program, have been essential in giving the district the necessary structure to move forward with its plans.
“There was a possibility to start this last year. Just the timing of it wasn’t right for us,” Uhler said. “We didn’t have a lot of time to prepare for it and work through some of the logistics. So [the Commanders] are providing flags and uniforms and … there’s some financial contributions from them as well to support our programs, which has allowed us to put a coach into a position, make it a paid position, and then to help facilitate some of the daily operations to just get us started. So they’ve been phenomenal in getting us off the ground.”
Uhler said he and his fellow CSAs were “pleasantly surprised” by how much demand and interest local student-athletes already had for the sport, with Uhler estimating that each school had over 20 girls try out.
While some signed up to try a sport they’d never played before, others, like Pioneers junior quarterback Aaleyah Gibson, have already been competing for years.
Gibson said she started playing for RISE in eighth grade and has also played travel for Adrenaline Rush K&A under new Pioneers head coach and Handley alum Lee Myers. She said she’s grateful for the opportunity to play high school flag football after seeing it evolve in recent years.
“Having a team just for Millbrook is amazing,” Gibson said. “[Flag football] has grown a lot, with it starting where we were the only girls’ team in rec, playing all-boys teams, to now having multiple girls’ teams in rec, having travel. Now that colleges are picking up flag football, it is such an opportunity for the girls to try something new.”
Gibson said this season will be her first playing quarterback and is excited to take on a new challenge the same way many of her teammates are trying out the sport for the first time.
According to Arbiter, Millbrook rosters six freshmen, while Handley has seven, Sherando has four and James Wood has two. The Colonels have the most sophomores in the area with seven.
Myers, who’s been around flag football for 20 years, including his time playing in the All American Football League, said he’s excited to see how these younger players shape the sport’s future locally.
“This is the future right here,” Myers said. “What you see here is actually history, the first-ever girls flag football team to touch Millbrook High School. It’s a great window for these girls to show off their athleticism, and it doesn’t stop here at high school; it goes even further. This is just such a fast-paced, growing sport.”
Myers said he’s glad he can keep recruiting players despite Millbrook’s season having kicked off on Saturday at Heritage. He said teams have the first 40% of the season to try expanding their rosters as the sport gains traction.
James Wood head coach Kevin Fowlkes said he’s worked hard to promote Colonels’ flag football to students by utilizing social media and handing out T-shirts and other merchandise at tackle football games.
He said one way James Wood grew its roster was by adding a few athletes who were cut from a different sport. He also noted the Colonels have three players with travel flag football experience, which he said is a similar amount to the other area teams.
Fowlkes said he’s excited for younger players, including his daughter, freshman Natalee Fowlkes, to get the chance to play four years of high school ball. He believes flag football is a tremendous opportunity for athletes, especially anyone who decides to pursue it after graduation.
“We also have college coaches contacting us,” Fowlkes said. “I had a coach ask me for our schedule because he wanted to come down and watch the girls. Because [some colleges’ programs] are not established, they are giving scholarships out a lot right now. This is a good sport to get into right now to start learning and get in there on that.”
Although this is the first year all four schools have their own official teams, Frederick County has already sent one player to the next level.
Class of 2026 Sherando graduate Alana Taylor is now a member of Division II Ferrum College’s roster after competing for the Warriors’ RISE team last year.
Taylor had never played flag football before her senior year, and said her hard work throughout the season helped her improve and reach the collegiate level. Taylor said she takes pride in being the area’s first-ever flag player to compete in college.
“I knew nothing about flag football before,” Taylor said. “I put in a lot of effort and work to be at the level that I was at and that I’m continuing to be at. I know other girls who’ve had similar experiences to me, but they didn’t necessarily know that they could take it to the next level. So I take pride in allowing other girls to see that if you put in effort too, and if that’s where you want to be, you can do it.”
Taylor, who’s targeting a return for Ferrum’s season opener on Feb. 19 after tearing her ACL in early May, said she’s excited to come home and watch some of her former RISE teammates who now play officially for Sherando. She’s also excited to speak to current RISE players after the league invited her to visit.
Sherando, James Wood and Handley will each take the field on Wednesday at Millbrook, which is hosting three games, including its second contest of the season that day. The Warriors will play Warren County at 5 p.m., the Colonels and Judges will face off at 6 and Millbrook will take on Skyline at 7. Games are 24 minutes with a running clock until the last minute.
Uhler said this “pod-based system”, where multiple games happen at one location, is something he proposed.
“There was some more structural stuff we wanted to take into account,” Uhler said. “This is still technically a club [sport], so we wanted to be conscious of the need of officials. We worked with our local officials association, and I came up with this pod-based system to play multiple games at one location, just to cut down on travel and also to cut down on the need of officials, with us having JV football running through the week as well.”
Uhler said after this first week, where three games with two unique opponents in each will take place, the league will move to one school hosting two other teams, with each team playing twice that day. For example, James Wood will host Millbrook and Sherando on Sept. 30 and face both of them that day.
In the Northwestern District, Handley, James Wood, Millbrook, Sherando, Skyline and Warren County will all be grouped together in the regular season. The season will conclude on Halloween at Meridian High School, as the Mustangs will host the Northwestern District Flag Football Championship tournament.
“It’s kind of like our postseason,” Uhler said. “It’s a 12-team, double-elimination tournament setup that we’re going to go with.”
With players, coaches and administrators alike excited for the season to kick into full swing, there’s optimism that this is just the start of the sports’ growth in Virginia.
Both men’s and women’s flag football are set to make their Olympic debut at the 2028 Los Angeles games, and Washington D.C. and 23 states, including Maryland, have already sanctioned flag football at the high school level.
Uhler said a logical step in the coming years would be the Virginia High School League sanctioning the sport, noting this would allow schools to add JV teams, assistant coaches and more.
Handley head coach Chris Boone said he’d love to see a state-recognized postseason in the future.
“Let’s make it just like the rest of the [high school sports],” Boone said. “Have [an official] district playoffs, have state championship games, stuff like that. We don’t want to be looking at as a secondary sport. So hopefully, the district and the state and everybody takes it serious, and we get that going.”
Uhler expects interest from the community to only grow from here.
“The games aren’t very long,” Uhler said. “It’s a fun spectator sport and I think it’s something that, when people come out and watch it, they’re going to be interested and they’re going to want to come back and watch more,” Uhler said.
— Contact Joe Tuman at jtuman@winchesterstar.com
Follow him on X @jtuman21