Highland flag football open spring drills with 2026 title in mind

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.”

Highland Hawks center Bella Blum (3) tries to break past Red Mountain Mountain Lions defender Cadence McCanless (24) during their 6A semifinals playoff game at Campo Verde High School in Gilbert, on Nov. 19, 2025.