New game in town: Girls flag football set to make its debut in the Maui Interscholastic League

Across Hawaiʻi, practices have been underway for three weeks for the newest high school sport: girls flag football.

On Maui, Kilikopela Kamake‘e‘āina is happy that high school girls now get to competitively play the sport she already loves as the starting place kicker last fall for the Baldwin High School boys football team.

“Flag football was my first sport growing up,” she said. “I played it when I was about 3 years old. So to be able to play it again for my senior year, last year of high school, is very exciting.”

The Hawai‘i High School Athletic Association announced Aug. 1 that it was adding girls flag football to its docket this spring.

The Maui Interscholastic League will field nine teams: Baldwin, Maui High, Kamehameha Maui, King Kekaulike, Lahainaluna, Kūlanihākoʻi, Lānaʻi, Moloka‘i, and a combined team call MPac that will include players from St. Anthony, Haleakalā Waldorf and Maui Christian Academy. 

Games begin on Saturday and will run for five weeks on Fridays and Saturdays on turf fields at Lahainaluna, Kamehameha Maui and King Kekaulike.

More than 200 players are on rosters in the MIL, and while many play other sports, very few have experience at the game of flag football.

While the Hawai‘i High School Athletic Association distributed its rules for the 2025 season earlier this month, complete national rules for the sport are set to be announced by the National Federation of State High School Associations in May.

The game in Hawai‘i will be played on fields that are 80 yards long and 40 yards wide, although fields can be smaller based on space available. This is a little smaller than the traditional high school football field of 120 yards long and 53 yards wide.

Instead of 10 yards to be gained for a first down in regulation tackle football, 20 yards are required in flag when the field is 80 yards long, but the first down requirement can be adjusted for shorter fields when space is limited. There is no contact allowed in flag football, although incidental contact while reaching for a flag on the belt worn by a ballcarrier does happen. When flags are pulled from the Velcro attachment to the belts, a ballcarrier is ruled down.

And, instead of 11 players on either side of the ball like in tackle football, there will be seven players on the field for each team.

Games consist of four 12-minute quarters with a running clock until the last 2 minutes of each half. The game clock starts on the snap following the stoppage for the 2-minute warning.

MIL teams will play an eight-game regular season, which requires two games in a day per team in several instances. An MIL tournament will be played April 19 where the league’s top two teams will advance to the state tournament April 30-May 3.

According to the Hawai‘i High School Athletic Association, 58 schools will field teams in the inaugural season of flag football.

Kamake‘e‘āina was a standout for the Bears girls soccer team that reached the state tournament, and she hopes to use her knowledge of the game of flag football to her advantage.

“It’s a step up mentally because you have no physical contact and everything,” Kamake‘e‘āina said. “So you’ve got to be shifty, more skilled and know where you are.”

Maui High junior Naiara Bal is a standout basketball player for the Sabers, who won the MIL Division I title in that sport this season for the first time since 1999. Bal is now taking the opportunity to expand her sports resume to flag football, a game she played briefly when she was 7 and 8 years old.

“It’s really fun, coming back, playing while I was young, and now finally having cleats on,” Bal said. “It’s really cool being on the field finally and working with all these girls.”

Bal’s close friend Lexi Kitagawa, a senior volleyball player for the Sabers, said she runs football drills with her family and friends, but has never formally played the game of flag football until now.

“It’s a good experience, new sport, definitely the change from volleyball shoes to cleats is different … and I’m getting used to it,” Kitagawa said.

King Kekaulike also has athletes all over the field, although less than a handful with any flag football experience.

Leiali‘i Coyle is one of five soccer players out for the the King Kekaulike flag team. She has never played the game prior to this inaugural season, but she sees a bright future for the sport.

“Once the younger ages get to high school they can play flag football,” Coyle said. “It’s a pretty cool sport — 100%, I’m having super fun with all the girls.”

Coyle said that playing soccer since the age of 5 has helped her with the skills of playing flag.

“While on the soccer field I’ve gotten more shifty, so it does help — so far in flag football I haven’t gotten any flags pulled, so it has really helped me,”  Coyle said. 

Head flag football coach Tyson Valle said more than half of his team has high school athletic experience, including soccer, basketball, softball, tennis and volleyball.

Valle is also the school’s boys football head coach in the fall. Half of the King Kekaulike regulation football staff are currently coaching the school’s Big Boy team for middle school players, while the other half of the coaching staff is with Valle coaching the girls.

Valle noted that he had more quarterback candidates in practice for his girls team than he did for the boys team last fall.

“There’s no quit in these girls, none whatsoever,” Valle said. “They’re working hard every single day. Everything that we’re doing is new to them, so it’s exciting. It’s different. I’m excited to see what they can do in the first game.”

King Kekaulike veteran girls soccer coach Gundi Dancil is helping coach flag football. Former Lahainaluna girls basketball coaches Todd Rickard and Iolani Kaniho are coaching the Lunas flag team.

Valle has the largest roster in the MIL at 44 girls. He said the biggest challenge is teaching them the fundamentals of the game: down and distance, first down markers, 5 yards, 10 yards.

He said: “We’re all new to what the flag football rules are.” But he added: “They’ve picked it up quick.”

At Baldwin, Dean Kramp is the head coach and also has five years experience coaching flag football at ‘Īao Intermediate School.

“This is not like regular football,” Kramp said.

Some examples of the Hawai‘i flag rules include that blockers must have their arms and hands at their side or across their chest; any use of hands, arms, elbows, legs or body to initiate contact during an offensive block is illegal. The defense is responsible for avoiding contact with a stationary blocker, which must be stationary for a distance of 2 yards in advance of the defender.

Baldwin’s flag football team has about 30 players, some of whom will be on a developmental team.

“It’s super fun, super new,” Kramp said.

For Baldwin, Kamake‘e‘āina has been a leader from the get-go, Kramp said. “She was emailing me before the season even started. She was asking when is preseason?”

According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, 14 state associations have sanctioned the sport, another state is voting on sanctioning the sport in April and 18 states are involved in independent/pilot programs at some level. 

States that have sanctioned the sport for girls include Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawai’i, Illinois, Mississippi, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

The Louisiana High School Athletic Association is voting in April to possibly become the 15th state to sanction the sport.

State associations with independent/pilot programs are Connecticut, District of Columbia, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin.  

At Kamehameha Maui, soccer standouts Evalani Keawekane and Myla Tuitele are among the leaders for coach Ka‘eo Ripani’s team. Keawekane, a senior, has a soccer scholarship awaiting at Seattle University in the fall.

“Most of the girls on this team play soccer as well, so I know all of them as friends from playing soccer,” Keawekane said. “This is all new to all of us, so we all have to learn the skills, but we have the mindset of just having fun and growing and being OK with making mistakes.”

Keawekane is intrigued that flag football is on the docket for the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028.

“A lot of girls came out for tryouts, so I just know how excited people are to watch flag football and there’s been a lot of people coming to watch practice,” Keawekane said. “Everyone at school is excited to come watch our games.”

The Warriors won the MIL Division I soccer title, but then were eliminated from state title contention in the quarterfinals.

“Our soccer season came up short in states, so we all wanted another to play with the seniors before they graduated,” Tuitele, a junior, said. “So we all just decided to join flag football.”