Chatfield flag football cruises to shutout win in season opener

LAKEWOOD — Chatfield senior Ella Wood made the most of her offensive opportunity Wednesday night at Trailblazer Stadium.

Wood had her first catch of her varsity career go for a 21-yard touchdown on a pass from junior quarterback Sadie Goodwin early in the second quarter against rival Dakota Ridge. 

“Someone got injured and I just walked on the field,” Wood said after the Chargers’ 14-0 shutout victory against the rival Eagles. “I’ve been practicing a little bit of offense. I wasn’t really expecting to play offense today, but I caught a touchdown.”

Two first-half touchdown passes from Goodwin was all the Chargers needed offensively in the season-opening win. Goodwin connected with junior Jenna Lee for a short touchdown pass on the opening drive of the game.

“She (Goodwin) is probably the most coachable kid on our team,” Chatfield coach Alexis Rosholt said of the Chargers’ quarterback that primarily was a receiver last year. “She takes feedback so well. She will grow from it. She is a kid that owes it when she does something wrong. She will go nowhere but up from here. Getting this first game out of the way will be really helpful for her.”

Chatfield’s defense did the rest holding Dakota Ridge’s run-heavy offense in check.

“We have a bunch of new players who haven’t played much on defense,” Rosholt admitted. “It’s just a learning curve on bringing our linebackers up to cover when we rush. It will just be discipline in practice to learn those things.”

Dakota Ridge (1-1 record) was coming off a 12-0 season-opening shutout victory against Golden the night before at Trailblazer Stadium. The Eagles’ best scoring chance came late in the fourth quarter, but Chatfield junior Ellie Buck grabbed an interception near the goal-line to seal the victory and preserve the shut out.

“We had to adjust how much rushers we were going to send and where we were going to play on defense,” Wood said of facing the run-heavy Eagles. “We had a challenge.”

Wednesday was actually the first flag football meeting between the South Jeffco neighboring schools. The Chargers and Eagles didn’t face each other last year in the first season that flag football became a CHSAA-sanctioned sport. Chatfield captured the state championship during the first pilot year of girls flag football during the Fall 2022 season. 

Rosholt has adjusted her roster a little bit from last year where girls primarily played just offense or defense.

“We took less on varsity this year because we knew we would have more two-way players,” Rosholt said of the make-up of this year’s squad. “We felt last year we were hindering our abilities a little bit by keeping players more one-sided.”

The change definitely benefited Wood with her making plays on both sides of the football against rival Dakota Ridge.

“It is really nice. It keeps everyone really involved,” Wood said of a lot of girls playing both sides of the ball. “We work more of a team together. I think it is going to be a really good year for us.”