The Griffins will always be No. 1.
No matter how many Public League trophies get handed out in future years in the sport of high school flag football, the Academy at Palumbo will remain at the top of the list. The Griffins won the first officially recognized PPL girls flag football championship on May 20, defeating Kensington High School, 20-0, under perfect conditions at the Germantown Supersite. The trophy case at the South Philly school now contains a little bit of history.
“We started from scratch and it became infectious,” Palumbo coach Chris Donnelly said. “We have a bunch of athletes and they all just kind of liked it. Nobody is ever going to top it. Nobody is ever going to be the first.”
This year marks Palumbo’s third as a flag football program, which makes them one of the original teams as the sport began to break through in the area. This season was the first that the Public League and others began officially sanctioning the sport and recognizing a champion.
The timing was good as the Griffins established their dominance in the Public League, running an undefeated record (11-0) all the way through the PPL Championship. The team cemented its place in the history books with another shutdown performance in the title game.
“It feels great,” sophomore Beatrix Kaeli said after receiving MVP honors in the championship. “I know my team was going to pull through with the way we were playing throughout the season. I knew it was coming.”
Kaeli scored two second-half touchdowns and snagged an interception to help solidify her case for MVP. But the Griffins got the early jump just after the coin toss as sophomore quarterback Raniyah Bennett led the team down the field for an opening-drive touchdown. She hit Tascianna Xavier on a 25-yard strike to put Palumbo up 6-0. It certainly calmed some of the early-game jitters.
“I’m always nervous,” Bennett said. “But that’s when I do my best. But once I got the feel of how their defense was playing, it calmed me down. My coach also knows how to calm me down.”
The Griffins, although stacked with talented underclassmen, played like a veteran squad. Palumbo led 6-0 at halftime but extended the lead on its first drive of the second half. Xavier picked off a Kensington pass to set up a Bennett-to-Kaeli touchdown to make it 12-0. The two connected again later in the second half and the defense fittingly topped the scoring by recording a safety in the final moments. The Griffins had allowed only two touchdowns all season.
“I’m really confident in both sides,” Kaeli said. “But the defense really pulled through. I’m really proud of the whole team.”
Being the first to win a PPL title was always the goal, but the focus is already shifting to repeating as champs.
“They are so young,” Donnelly said. “We have four seniors but we have a lot of sophomores and juniors. It’s exciting. We think we can be even better than this. This is the goal that we set from the beginning. I said it’s Public League championship. If we don’t win that, it’s a disappointing season to me.”
Donnelly also coaches basketball at Palumbo in the winter. Several of her football players were part of a very successful basketball season just a few months ago. They’re learning a new sport and new, valuable team element.
“I just think football is the ultimate team sport. Individual effort alone gets you nothing,” Donnelly said. “You have to play as a team. I think that’s what’s so exciting about it. I really think this sport is going to catch on like wildfire.”
Some might say it already has. Sponsored by the Philadelphia Eagles, the Girls Flag Football league started with 16 teams in 2022. In just two years, it has expanded to include 65 teams from Pennsylvania and another 27 from South Jersey, spanning six different divisions and conferences.
The Griffins earned their slice of history this year. It’s something they won’t soon forget.
“We’re pretty close, all of us,” Bennett said. “It was special to win this and it was special to win it with our seniors. It was a great experience for all of us.”
