Bonita Springs preparing for second flag football season

Writer: Sylvie Sparks
Published: Updated:

The Bull Sharks are swimming into their second flag football season.

After a successful 7-4 debut season last year, Bonita Springs girls could not wait to try out for the team.

“We had about 60 at tryouts,” Bonita Springs Head Coach Thomas McGuire said. “We cut it down to 50 that are out here now.”

In only the second year the sport is offered in Lee County schools, the Bull Sharks are fielding both a varsity and a junior varsity team.

Second year head coach McGuire crediting the interest to the ‘Caitlin Clark Effect’.

“Girls see that they’re entitled to everything that boys are entitled to in sports,” McGuire said. “I felt like it kind of became my calling to fight for girls and give them what they deserve, which is everything.”

Junior center and linebacker Brianna Shanblatt enters her second year on the team with a different mentality than she came in with last season.

“I was very on the fence, but I never regret it for a single day,” Shanblatt said. “I love it so much.”

Passion for the game like Shanblatt’s’s spread through the team and the school.

“Other girls want to try something new so this is a great way to start,” sophomore wide receiver Jaslene Garcia said.

Now double the amount of girls who played last season, are taking the field this year.

With a full offseason under their belts, or should I say flags, the Bull Sharks are confident they will make a splash.

The Bull Sharks will play in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Preseason Classic, the biggest girls flag football tournament in the country, on Feb. 12.

They kick off the regular season at home against Cape Coral on Feb. 18.

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