BROOKLET – After winning back to back games, the Southeast Bulloch Yellow Jackets Flag Football team not only qualified for its third state playoff tournament, but are in pursuit of a third state championship win.
On Tuesday night, Southeast Bulloch defeated Swainsboro 35-0 to qualify for the state tournament, and last night they defeated Dodge County 13-0 making it their 56th overall win.
Since SEB started their flag football program 3 years ago, they have not lost a game. That’s quite a feat, but the demand to keep winning has only built since then.
“The pressure is huge,” said head coach Marci Cochran. “Everyone who’s played [at SEB] has never lost a game so every time you step on the field you're getting the best from everybody because everybody in the state of Georgia wants to beat us.”
Flag Football has really brought a new dimension to high school sports when it became GHSA sanctioned in 2020. Since then, schools all around the state have added teams to their sports rosters and the sport itself has just skyrocketed into this big phenomenon.
In October of this year, the International Olympic Committee added flag football to the official list of approved sports for the 2028 Olympics which are to be held in Los Angeles.
This decision not only adds enticement to watch the 2028 summer olympics even more, but allows for more schools and universities to register flag football teams to their directory and pull out more female athletes to try and gain scholarships. At Southeast Bulloch, that seed is already showing promise.
Last year, Ansleigh Littles was the first SEB player to sign to play flag football at the collegiate level with Florida Gateway College. This year that number doubled as two seniors, Korine Talkington (QB) and Addie Hood (WR) have also signed to play collegiately.
Hood will be following her sister to play at Florida Gateway, and Talkington is intended to play at Campbellsville University in Kentucky.
If Southeast Bulloch were to make it all the way, the State Championship game would be held on December 11, 2023 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta at 2 p.m.
“We want to leave our legacy better than we found it,” Talkington said and she and her teammates, along with the guidance of head coach Marci Cochran, are doing just that.
The Flag Football team will be back in action against the Washington County Golden Hawks at 6:30 p.m. tonight at Washington County High School.
