AFTER-SCHOOL SPORTS: Belle Air School Goes Undefeated in Flag Football

Right before the season was about to start, Lorenzo Hockaday had a reason to be worried.

The flag football team that he coaches at for the city's only had two players who were registered.

When the rest of the team finally signed up to play, they didn't even have a full roster—only seven players—and not all of them understood the game.

"One of my second-grade girls didn't know what an in route was or what the cornerback did," said Hockaday, 20, who works as a rec leader for the city's . "So it was a challenge."

Despite those challenges, the Belle Air team managed to make it through the season, which ended Friday, as the only team in the flag football league that went undefeated.

They beat the team in a close 42-32 win to cap a season that saw double the number of players and more schools participating.

Jennie Tucker, the city's recreation services supervisor, said the increase in participation seemed to be a direct result of the city's decision to partner up with the schools this year to expand the grades involved and keep a lot of the play at the school sites.

Tucker said she saw a lot of teamwork throughout the season, and the kids seemed to have fun, especially when it came time to play games at on Friday nights.

But nothing compared to that last game between Belle Air and Rollingwood, Hockaday said.

All throughout the season, Hockaday had been working with his players—five boys and two sisters, all in second through fifth grades—on the fundamentals of the game. Occasionally, he would bring in some of his old buddies whom he went to school with at to teach the kids certain techniques.

They eventually began to gel and understand how the game worked, Hockaday said, which impressed him.

He was still worried, however, on the night of the game against Rollingwood. All week, he had been working on a game plan to stop a receiver on Rollingwood's team who Hockaday described as the best player in the league.

"Some of the things that kid did I couldn't even do," Hockaday said.

During the game, the Rollingwood receiver was making plays left and right, much to the chagrin of the Belle Air team.

Until one of Hockaday's fifth graders, one of the boys playing safety that he had been coaching since last year, decided he had had enough and that he was going to give it his all.

To thwart the Rollingwood receiver, Hockaday told his team to yell, "Ball!" the next time the ball was thrown to the receiver. The next time the ball was thrown, Hockaday said, the team yelled that the ball was in the air, and his fifth-grade safety turned around and intercepted the ball, which sealed the victory.

"It was pretty intense," Hockaday said.

The city's after-school sports league will pick back up again in January with basketball. Registration will start in December. For more information, visit the Community Services Department page on the city's website.