1 Photo
Kate Lynch at NFL headquarters in Manhattan last month where she was selected to attend a leadership symposium.
There’s no holding back Kate Lynch.
Despite not having a girls flag football team at Westhampton Beach High School, the rising sophomore tried her hand at qualifying for the inaugural Orlin & Cohen Long Island Girls QB Challenge at a tryout last month. And when officials holding the tryout told the group of girls who showed up that the majority of the spots would be filled by players who played girls flag football this past spring, that still didn’t deter Lynch.
Backed with her knowledge of throwing the ball with her father, John, Lynch convinced officials she had what it takes and will be one of 13 from Suffolk County competing in the first-ever event for girls at Kings Park High School this Sunday, July 23. The boys QB Challenge, which was held for the first time last summer, will get things started from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. with the girls taking the field in the afternoon from 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Lynch said in the car ride to the tryout with her dad that she was doubting herself a little bit on whether she would make it, but she eventually went in with no expectations whatsoever.
“I went there knowing that I wasn’t going to be upset no matter what happens, and that it was a good opportunity for me to just try out and see what the competition was like,” she said. “I was surprised that I made it, and it was just an emotional moment for me and my dad because we were working so hard and to see it pay off — it was relieving just to see that they were only going to take 12 or 13 girls to begin with. Then to find out that they were only going to take, like, four of us, and I was one of them, meanwhile the rest of them had played flag football and I had not.”
Lynch made the QB challenge along with Jenna Biondo (North Babylon), Jennifer Canarutto (Plainview-Old Bethpage JFK), Alexandra DaEira-Loccisano (Eastport-South Manor), Grace Gilmartin (Northport), Samantha Heyman (Hills), Julia Hromada (Center Moriches), Delaney Israel (Longwood), Taylor Mileti (Hauppauge), Olivia Moynihan (Sayville), Brooke Nielsen (Long Beach), Victoria O’Neill (Massapequa) and Pixie Ryan (Northport).
All girls who made the challenge also attended a leadership symposium at NFL headquarters in Manhattan last month, which allowed the student-athletes to hear from a panel of distinguished professionals highlighting a wide array of career paths, including law, medicine, finance, marketing and professional and collegiate sports.
Lynch called it a “breathtaking” moment for her to be able to attend the symposium.
“For me to be able to stand in that room with those people, I was a little kid jumping with joy just seeing and meeting everyone,” she said. “They continually talked about leadership and how the game impacted them more mentally than their physical skill, and that’s really what this competition this past year has done to me. I am mentally more positive than ever and I have so much more confidence in myself and I’m super excited for whatever comes next.”
What may come next is Westhampton Beach starting its own girls flag football program, if Lynch has anything to say about it. She’s already spoken about it with athletic director Jason Cohen, who said that if anyone can get a team started, it’s going to be Lynch — and she’s taken that task to heart.
“I am going to keep working on it until he has no choice but to say ‘yes,’” she said. “I think it’s very important that we all have the same opportunities to play the sports that we love, and Westhampton Beach is such a big school, it’s got such a huge community interest in football, that there has to be people out there that have the same thoughts and the same love of the game that I have.”
Section XI, the governing body of Suffolk County high school athletics, held a trial run of eight teams in spring 2022. That number nearly doubled to 14 schools this past spring, with East Hampton included in that mix. The sport, which has gained the backing of the National Football Foundation’s James C. Metzger Suffolk County Chapter, has certainly caught on statewide as well, with 142 teams total within the New York State Public High School Athletic Association, not including the 60 teams that play within the Public School Athletic League in New York City. In February, NYSPHSAA voted to make girls flag football, played in the spring, a sanctioned varsity championship sport in 2024, complete with a state tournament.
Lynch said she remembers liking football as a young child and putting her number 10 Eli Manning jersey on every Sunday to watch the New York Giants with her family. While her older sister and younger brother never got into the sport, she became heavily invested in it. She started to throw the football around with her dad and she kept getting better at it, to the point that she wanted to put her skills to the test on an actual football field.
Two years ago, Lynch asked Westhampton Beach Middle School football coach Jeff Doroski if she could come out for the team. As long as she could pass a physical test, Doroski told her, he would gladly carry her on the team, and she did.
“Just the chance to get on the team and not base it around my gender, I was so happy to hear him say I had a shot and I wasn’t going to waste that for anything,” Lynch said.
Lynch said she’ll be going out for the football team again this fall, whether she’ll land on junior varsity or varsity will be up to the coaches.
“I just know I want to play football,” she said. “I just want to be able to throw the ball and to do something. I’ll be perfectly fine with wherever they put me.”
This Sunday’s QB challenge events will measure several skill categories, including football intelligence, accuracy and anticipation. A winner is selected from each category, and an overall champion is named.
If Lynch continues with the same attitude she’s had throughout the whole process, anything can happen.
“This was all something new for me, but I stepped up to the challenge,” she said. “I’m a person who loves challenges, I love the opportunity to improve my skills and doing this competition will not only prove to my tackle football coaches that I have what it takes, but it’ll prove to myself that I’ve got what it takes to compete with those girls who do play flag football even without that experience.”
