Girls flag football: Mayer’s 3 TD passes, team defense, lead Fremd to regional crown over Libertyville

Starting just her third game of the season, junior Lily Mayer made it her best one.

The quarterback for Fremd's girls flag football team tossed 3 touchdown passes and caught one herself to help the No. 4 seeded Vikings to a 32-0 triumph over No. 5 Libertyville (12-7) in the Rolling Meadows regional championship game on Friday.

It gave Fremd (9-4) its first regional championship in the first year the IHSA is holding a state tourney for the sport.

"It feels really good," said Mayer, the youngest in her family with five older brothers. "We played really well. We knew we were really athletic and could do some good things."

Two of those athletic Vikings are headed to play Division I basketball (senior Ella Todd at Utah) and Division I soccer (senior Gwen Zimmer at Northwestern).

Krishna Patel showed her athleticism when she picked off a Libertyville pass in the end zone — her first interception of the season — and ran it back 45 yards.

FIve plays later Zimmerman caught a 13-yard TD pass from Mayer which gave the Vikings a 24-0 cushion with 41 seconds left to intermission.

Mayer had also thrown a 28-yard TD strike to Asya Poyraz (8-0 lead after Poyraz' 2-point conversion catch) and Mayer caught an 8-yard pass from Bella Del Mar on a trick play which made it 16-0 after Mayer's 2-point conversion pass to Poyraz with 9:40 left in the first half.

Todd scored the only touchdown in the second half when Mayer found her wide receiver in the middle of the end zone for a 1-yard pass. Mayer then scrambled into the end zone for the 2-point conversion and final margin of 32-0.

Mayer finished 12-of-14 for 195 yards.

"She is amazing in the pocket and she can scramble and make plays happen," said Fremd coach Rebecca Odette, "She is our playmaker for sure. It was just her third game starting. After we made a little adjustment at midseason to start her, she's been great."

Todd has had a great career in basketball at Fremd and is enjoying a new sport this fall heading into her senior year.

"It's exciting," she said. "It's been a lot of fun, especially for our first year. It's a learning curve for sure because we didn't know what we were doing. I figured I'd play my senior year. Now that I am committed, it's easier to do a fall sport."

"Ella could actually play flag football in college," said Odette, a physics teacher at Fremd who was a swimmer while in high school in California. "She is a top-notch athlete. And Gwen (Zimmerman) is our star running back. She had 4 touchdowns in our first regional game."

Fremd's next tournament game will be at the Stevenson sectional on Tuesday when it will meet top-seeded Hersey (16-2) in the 6:30 p.m. semifinal.

Libertyville wrapped up a successful first season under coach Tiffany Rafiner, a former gymnast at Libertyville.

"It was a very exciting first season," she said. "We won our conference (8-2) and I think it was super exciting and this has been such a great opportunity for all the girls in Illinois. I think it's fantastic and I hope the sport just continues to grow and get better."

Rafiner, a science teacher and a gymnastics coach at Libertyville, said her team was also filled with some great athletes.

"We have so many," she said. "Emma Williamson (156 passing yards) really stuck it out to the very end of the game. She never gave up, Bella Yarc and Ava Crivell were amazing with their runs and catches but Fremd's defense was just able to stop us.

"I think our defense just kind of over-thought what they were doing and did not communicate well. We made mistakes but Fremd is a great team."