Lacie Nemchick thinks about the play nearly every time she steps onto the football field.
Nemchick, a sophomore quarterback for the flag football team at Gilbert Highland, has been going over the moment in her head over and over again. The moment in question is the 2025 6A semifinals against Mesa Red Mountain. Up 24-14 with five minutes left in the game, Nemchick threw an interception that was returned for a 95-yard touchdown.
Red Mountain forced a punt on Highland’s ensuing drive and then scored two plays later, storming back to win 28-24 and advance to the state championship game.
“I replay it almost every time I think about flag football, honestly,” Nemchick said. “It hurts, with all the hard work we put in. Obviously, it sucked. But it definitely motivated not just me, but our whole team to be even better, work even harder this upcoming year.”
Highland is in the final week of spring practice, gearing up for what the Hawks hope will be another deep playoff run – but this time ending with a state championship. Highland will enter the fall 2026 season as one of the top-ranked teams in the state.
While the Hawks will see some key players graduate later this month, like wide receivers Addi Riggs and Emilee Searle, and rushers Kylie Riggs and Bella Cruz, a majority of last season’s core is returning.
There will likely be little to no drop-off from last year’s roster, as evidenced by the team going down to Florida and winning the 2026 Tampa Flag Football World Championships in January.
“It brought our confidence up a lot, which is good because we needed it,” said junior center Bella Blum. “We have a lot of seniors leaving. Getting the confidence of, ‘We can still do this. We’re going to push through. Any adversity, we’re going to be fine.’ It was cool to see that we still got this.”
Blum is one of Highland’s top returning players, coming off catching 71 passes for 508 yards and seven touchdowns.
Helping with that confidence is the growth of Highland’s program. There were 40 players out for spring practice, with more expected for the regular season.
Coach Kenny Golladay expects to have 60 players in the fall, split across three teams — one varsity and two junior varsity. One junior varsity team will essentially be a quasi-freshmen team made of up of just ninth graders.
Some high-profile transfers are expected as well.
Golladay is a former all-state kicker with Mesa Mountain View before playing at the University of Utah and before that Mesa Community College and Eastern Arizona College. He has spent the offseason focusing on the program infrastructure.
There are now eight coaches, including an offensive and defensive coordinator for all three teams, and a support coach for all teams and an assistant head coach for varsity.
Sponsorships have been signed, including with Gummi World, a nutritional supplement company in Chandler. With a background in athletics administration and sports nutrition, Golladay is leveraging his skills to build a comprehensive flag football program.
As the popularity of flag football grows both at the domestic and international level, and drawing interest at the college level, Golladay said he’s trying “to take advantage of the situation.”
“It’s an ongoing process, I don’t stop,” Golladay said. “I’m going with the flow, moving and pushing forward. And if other schools aren’t doing it, then whatever. But we’re going to keep going here.”
Nemchick isn’t the only one motivated by the painful playoff loss. The staff is as well.
“Since that loss, it’s been, ‘We’re not going to stop. We’re going to keep growing,’” Golladay said. “We’ll see how far we can go this next season. It’s going to get harder because flag football is popular everywhere.”
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Highland flag football opens spring with eye on 2026 title
