In the final minutes of Wednesday afternoon’s game against Molalla, Tualatin junior Bella Hernandez took the snap and dashed to her left on a designed quarterback run. She cut up the field before juking out to the left again to break away for a 10-yard touchdown run. It was a pretty standard play for the Timberwolves in what ended as a 44-7 victory.

It was also a showcase of the action that can be found as the girls take to the gridiron in a sport that has been dominated by the boys for decades. This spring is the first time that girls flag football is being offered as an emerging activity in Oregon. The Oregon School Activities Association’s delegate assembly approved giving girls flag football that designation in October 2024.

For Hernandez, signing up for flag football was a no-brainer. “I’ve never been like a girly girl,” Hernandez said. “I always said if they had girls tackle football I would totally do it.

So I did powderpuff my freshman and sophomore year, and loved it. So when I heard about flag football, I was like, ‘Oh my God, I want to do this so bad.’” Girls flag football looks similar to the seven-on-seven football that boys will do in the offseason. There are seven players on each side of the ball, with teams lined up in a similar fashion to a tackle football team without the linemen.

The field has been trimmed down to 80 yards long and 40 yards wide. A tackle is recorded when a player pulls a flag off the hip of the ballcarrier. There are 47 teams signed up to play girls flag football this spring, up from 32 teams last spring.

The OSAA’s delegate assembly needs at least 50 teams to be fielded in an activity before voting on whether to fully sanction it. The 2025 girls flag football season will end in a culminating event on May 17. Ries Miadich, who was a key member of the Tualatin girls basketball team that won the Class 6A state title in March, is one of the top players for the Timberwolves’ flag football team this spring.

On Wednesday afternoon, Miadich split her time between quarterback, running back and receiver while also playing in the safety spot on defense. Miadich said she mostly tried out for flag football at the request of Bubba Lemon — the boys basketball coach at Tualatin and now the coach of the girls flag football team — but ended up finding something that she’s really passionate about. “I turned out to really love it and I really enjoy my time here,” she said.

For Lemon, coaching girls flag football is almost a return to his roots. Lemon was on the football, basketball and track teams when he was at Tualatin High School and continued all of those sports collegiately at Linfield University. After college, Lemon coached on the Willamette University football team for nine years before returning to Tualatin.

When Lemon took over as head coach of the basketball team in 2022, he took a step back from helping out with the football program. When the school started a flag football team this year, he said it was a good opportunity to work with a different group of students. “I do a lot for the football program and with the guys in Tualatin, and I just thought, how do I give back to the girls?” Lemon said.

“How do I get them excited about stuff? And I thought this was a great opportunity.” Lemon added that his excitement about girls flag football is amplified by thinking about his own daughter, who he thinks would love to play flag football when she’s older. “I think if this is an option for her in the future, I’m really excited and these girls are paving the way,“ Lemon said.

”It’s been awesome because my daughter comes out to practice and these girls just love up on her so she’s kinda like being around the game already and stuff.” Lemon said one of the big hurdles that his team is facing right now is simply learning the basics of football. So while he’s breaking down how the plays work, he’s also guiding players through some basic rules as many of them are just playing football for the first time. “We have some great athletes out here for sure and so I’m over here trying to teach the plays, whether it’s a cover 3, cover 2, cover 4, blitz, like I’m teaching them all of that stuff that high school teams do and college teams do, but then I’m like, this is the line of scrimmage,” he said.

“This is how you stand, this is how you start. So it’s been very interesting and fun to watch their growth.” A standout on the basketball court for the Timberwolves, Miadich said she was a bit surprised when learning how the football schemes work. “I didn’t think it was that complicated, but then I’m out there on the field and everything’s happening so quick,” Miadich said.

Luckily for Miadich, she’s already had years learning Wes Pappas’ zone defense — which regularly has Tualatin as the top team in Class 6A in terms of fewest points allowed. But even with that knowledge, she said she is still learning every day. But so is everyone, as girls flag football is only in its second season as a club sport in Oregon.

“Everyone’s new,” she said. “The teams that have been here before have only had a year of experience before us so we’re all kind of on the same level. We’re learning pretty quick and we’re winning games.” Hernandez said a major help for this year has been Lemon’s ability to really simplify the game so that it’s approachable even for those who don’t know anything about football.

“I think he’s been a big help in really understanding it,” Hernandez said. “Some of the girls have never played a sport before but they’re doing so good and I’m just so excited to see like how we can come along like as my senior year comes and I think that we have a lot of potential.” Patience has been important, Lemon said, as the team continues to drill fundamentals. “I know some of them, they watch the football players and they’re like, ‘Man, why can’t I just do it like that,’” Lemon said.

“Because you haven’t been doing it your whole life. These guys have been having eight to 10 years of experience of throwing it every weekend, and this is the first time we’re teaching you even how to hold a football. But they’re doing a great job keeping their head up, staying positive and just coming through.” And Lemon said the feedback he’s gotten has been great, as girls flag football has opened the door for more parents and community members to get involved.

“I think everybody loves it. Everybody thinks it’s a good thing,” Lemon said. “The parents have been asking how they can help, even if they can help coach.

I see a lot of dads that get really excited about this. I mean, they, they have a game that they’ve loved their whole entire life, and then now they get to share it with their daughter in a different way, which is really awesome.” Just up north, the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association just approved adding girls flag football as a varsity sport in a meeting on April 21. Washington is the 16th state to add girls flag football as an official sport, joining multiple western states like Arizona, California, Colorado and Hawaii.

The OSAA’s delegate assembly could vote on adding the sport in the 2025-26 school year. Subscribe to the High School Sports+ newsletter Sign up here to get exclusive news and insights from high school sports editor Nik Streng. — Nik Streng covers high school sports in Oregon.

Reach him at nstreng@oregonian.com or @NikStreng