LAKEWOOD — C’mon, son, give your sister a turn.
No, no, let her try. She’s got it.
All those years as a fringe participant in America’s most popular pastime. Present on the sidelines and in the stands. And at the tailgates, tossing the football around with her dad and brothers. But blocked usually from joining the violent fun on the field, of getting in on the ultimate team game.
At least until 2023, when flag football for girls was sanctioned in California high schools. When 10,832 girls participated in the first year, and 19,921 the year after that. This year, we have more than 25,000 girls playing in California. Nationwide, more than 267,000 girls between 6 and 17 played last year.
Think of how many sisters of football players are now, themselves, football players.
Like Lexi Loya. Younger sister of Logan Loya, the former St. John Bosco and UCLA receiver who’s now catching passes for the Minnesota Golden Gophers.
Lexi is the one throwing passes for the Saint Joseph High flag football team, undefeated and ranked No. 3 in the country, according to MaxPreps, which is keeping tabs on the 17 states that have so far sanctioned the sport.
That’s right, the all-girls Catholic college-preparatory high school in Lakewood is a football powerhouse. Like its partner school, all-boys Bosco, which currently is the nation’s No. 2 high school football team, you can now call Saint Joseph a football school.
And it’s is not the only flag football program in the area angling for sibling bragging rights.
There’s also Mater Dei, with the country’s top-ranked (boys) football program and 14th-ranked girls flag football team; there’s the No. 1 Orange Lutheran flag football team with the No. 23 tackle team; there’s Santa Margarita, Nos. 4 and 17 in flag and tackle, respectively.
“If you notice,” Saint Joseph athletic director Earl Lewis said, “all of the schools that have very good tackle have good flag football teams. Those girls have watched those boys play hard and now they’re like, ‘I can do that, I know what that looks like.’”
Like Lexi Loya. She was four days old when she attended one of Logan’s football games for the first time. She grew up with a front-row seat as her dad, Tim, coached and Logan excelled and opened doors to an array of college opportunities that are only starting to be made available to talented girls like Lexi.
Because the timing has worked out on her route, Lexi does have the opportunity to make a name for herself as one of the best flag QBs in Southern California.
Last season, she threw 73 touchdowns and led the Jesters – who spent part of the season as the No. 1 team in the country – to a 21-1 record.
Their only blemish was a 20-13 playoff loss against Corona del Mar in a game that was historic because it was, Tim Loya said, the first taste of CIF-SS Division I playoff action a Saint Joseph’s sports team ever had.
This season, the 5-foot-8 junior has piloted the Jesters to an 8-0 start, with Lexi already accounting for 21 touchdowns and 1,401 yards passing.
If someone had told Logan when he enrolled at UCLA in 2020 that his little sister would soon be a star quarterback in high school, yes, he would have believed it, he said: “With all her athletic ability, and she’s crazy-smart, I knew she would’ve been a stud.”
Would have been because a few years ago she could not have been.
“I would’ve believed in her,” he said. “I just wouldn’t have believed the sport would be blasting off like it has.”
The jesters on the Jesters – they really are a funny bunch, self-deprecating and smart – say what they appreciate most about Lexi isn’t her arm strength and precision, but that she doesn’t carry herself “like the star of the show” as Julia Scalas imagines other quarterbacks probably do.
Shrugged Lexi: “There’s a lot we’re still working on; everyone is always learning together.” And they’re receiving the same coaching Logan and his teammates used to from Tim. The retired firefighter began, on both the girls’ and boys’ side, by instituting a play called “the Chamber,” a tribute to his former Cypress fire station.
Before flag football was a sanctioned sport, Lexi and her teammates in the program – which went from 14 girls on one varsity team in Year 1 to more than 50 on varsity, junior varsity and freshman squads now – would have been focused on soccer or softball. Or water polo or dance. Or rock climbing or tennis or weightlifting or volleyball or track or gymnastics or any of the sports sophomore Luella Volkoff sampled before football became her “No. 1.”
That’s the consensus for these girls at Saint Joseph, who are locked in and gaining confidence by mastering this new thing, Sophia Ochoa said. Who are sharpening their decision-making skills, said Khloe Frausto. Who are enjoying the mentorship of the older girls who are real-life pioneers, freshman Olivia Haller said.
Who are here at the right time, but a little early too, because women’s flag football has just gotten its toe down at the collegiate level. The NAIA has had a Women’s Flag Football Championship since 2021 and there are signs that NCAA Division I, II and III schools could embrace the sport soon. Lewis thinks its inclusion at the L.A. Olympics in 2028 will push it across the starting line.
But, for now, a stellar quarterback with a 4.6 grade-point average has many more Saint Joseph plays memorized than plays available to her after her Jesters career.
“I would like to play in college,” Lexi said. “I would like bigger schools to pick it up so I can get the education I really dream for. Because I always loved the idea of going to a big school – but if that’s not possible, dreams can change, they can alter, it’s wherever it takes me.”
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