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Etiwanda girls flag football team beats Upland, finishes unbeaten in Baseline League – San Bernardino Sun

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RANCHO CUCAMONGA — Etiwanda flag football coach Jacob Ahmad knew his team already had the Baseline League title secured, and he heard the whispers that a loss in Tuesday’s regular-season finale might help his team’s playoff draw.

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Etiwanda’s Nahdeen Purvis-Romero (17), scores the game winning touchdown against Upland in a Baseline League girls flag football game in Rancho Cucamonga on Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

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But Ahmad doesn’t subscribe to that mentality.

So with his team trailing by five points in the final minute, he opened his bag of tricks to a play he calls “Oiler.”

“Oiler” resulted in the winning touchdown scored by Nahdeen Purvis-Romero with 8.4 seconds remaining as host Etiwanda defeated Upland 19-18.

Etiwanda finishes the regular season 22-3 overall, 10-0 in league, and will likely be placed in Division 1 for the CIF Southern Section playoffs. Upland finishes in a tie for second with Rancho Cucamonga at 18-6, 7-3 and will likely be in Division 2.

The playoff pairings will be released Friday at 2 p.m.

“There’s a lot of people who say, ‘let’s lose this game, so we can drop down in the rankings’ or ‘let’s lose so we can go down a division,’” Ahmad said. “I just wasn’t raised that way. It’s not the morals and values we live by as a team.

“We want to become the best team in the Inland Empire.”

Etiwanda never trailed Tuesday until Rebecca Ewing threw a 19-yard touchdown pass to Leah Davis on the second play of the fourth quarter to put the Highlanders up 18-13.

Etiwanda nearly regained the lead on the next possession. But on fourth-and-goal from the 3, Alexis Valdez caught Shelby Hong’s pass but her flag was pulled by Davis just before the goal line.

Upland tried to run out the clock, but the Eagles had a final drive that started at their own 24 with 1:05 left.

They converted on a fourth-and-2 at their 38, then faced second down at the Highlanders’ 17 with 15.3 seconds to play.

Ahmad got “Oiler” from a previous opponent, the Huntington Beach Oilers. The Eagles didn’t use the play, a hook and lateral, until Monday’s game against Rancho Cucamonga. Ahmad said he was careful not to use the play Monday until after Upland (which played in the game before Etiwanda) left the field.

“We only practiced it for two days and this was only the third time running it ever,” Ahmad said. “We figured, worst-case scenario (Tuesday) is we get out of bounds inside the 5 with time to run two more plays. Sure enough, she was able to break the corner and get to the end zone.”

Cassandra Vazquez threw the initial pass to Mariah Wakumoto, who pitched it back to Purvis-Romero just inside the 10 and she raced to the corner of the end zone.

“They caught us off-guard,” Upland coach Heather Inglima said. “Kudos to them for that.”

Vazquez finished with 175 yards on 22-of-33 passing, two touchdowns and one interception. Shelby Hong as the Eagles’ other quarterback, only attempted five passes, but scored Etiwanda’s other touchdown.

Upland scored all three of its touchdowns on passes by Ewing, two to Davis and the other to Arianna Velazquez. Ewing completed 11 of 15 passes for 94 yards. The difference in the game turned out to be the Eagles’ conversion on their first touchdown, on their opening drive.

“We were in their shoes last year and we knew how bad they wanted it,” Inglima said. “We just wanted to try and break that momentum. We played from start to finish with heart.”



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