Tryouts for Oak Harbor High School’s first-ever flag football program were in full swing last week.

Head Coach Mike Lonborg estimated over 30 girls participated in the Nov. 18 session, leading him to believe cuts may be unnecessary. Varsity and junior varsity teams — the rosters of which may not be finalized until this week — each need seven players on-field at a time, plus substitutes.

Building a program from the ground up comes with its challenges, like the lack of a preexisting pool of players. But Lonborg sees his position as an advantageous one.

“There’s some difficulty to it, but by the same token, there’s also such a freshness,” he explained. “It’s like taking a bunch of Legos and putting them together and building them into whatever you want it to look like.”

Lonborg lacks experience coaching football, specifically, but has coached soccer for 25 years. He just wrapped up the season with the school’s girls varsity soccer team as head coach, which made state for the third consecutive year. Many of the girls trying out for the team are already high school athletes, but everyone is as new to Wildcat flag football as Lonborg — and that eases the pressure.

“When you’re coaching sports, there’s a lot of similarities,” he explained. “But I mean, when you’re coaching something like this, none of these girls have done it either. … They’re all learning from scratch. So we’re all learning together.”

Seniors Annalise Wesley and Layla Suto attested to a strong pace of play throughout the day’s session which, towards the end, included a relay drill penalizing players responsible for fumbled balls with burpees.

Lonborg praised players’ effort and attitudes. Two days in, he was able to begin to distinguish between players with certain skills, like throwing and field awareness, so as to eventually determine players’ positions.

“I’ve been highly impressed,” Lonborg said. “But a lot of it’s going to come down to athleticism. Can you catch the ball? Can you run? Are you coachable, and able to run the routes?”

A week remains until the varsity team’s first taste of game action on Dec. 3 at the Squalicum Jamboree in Bellingham; the junior varsity schedule is currently in progress as of Monday morning.

Most nights this season, the Wildcats will play two teams with four present. Two games will be played at the same time on opposite ends of the field, as flag football is played on a field smaller than those used for standard American football. The season will continue into late January, including two home games against the Everett Seagulls and the Cascade Bruins on a single night, Jan. 7.

Lonborg’s emphasis of the promise demonstrated at tryouts indicates the Wildcats will be ready to meet the season head-on.

“They’re working hard and you can see it when they’re running their drills,” he said. “I mean, it’s the end of practice and they’re still going hard and they’re having fun and they’re positive.”

Lonborg said he was “impressed” by the effort demonstrated in what was only two days of tryouts so far. (Photo by Allyson Ballard)

Given the turnout, Head Coach Mike Lonborg said he is “hoping” to keep everyone who participated in tryouts. (Photo by Allyson Ballard)