EDWARDSVILLE - Alton’s girls flag football team finished its first season 1-14, but a 26-6 victory over Hillsboro on Sept. 24, 2026, gave the Redbirds their first program win and a milestone in a year focused on learning the sport.
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The Redbirds closed their season in the IHSA playoffs with a 58-6 loss to Edwardsville on Tuesday night, Sept. 29, 2026, at Edwardsville.
Redbirds Girls Head Flag Football Coach Nic Bradshaw said the team’s goals extended beyond its record.
“Going into year one, we just wanted to have fun,” Bradshaw said. “We wanted to compete, and most importantly, learn. We wanted to learn the sport, learn the little tricks here and there, and overall, that was our goal: to have fun, learn the sport, and have it be a sport for us going forward.”
Coach Bradshaw pointed to the win over Hillsboro and the team’s scoring in the second half of the season as signs of progress for the young roster.
“We got our first win against Hillsboro,” Bradshaw said, “and put points on the board in the second half of the season. I always said focus on the small goals, with our very, very young team going forward. I feel like that’s a lot of momentum for us, and hopefully, something we can build off of.”
Looking ahead to the program’s second season in 2027, Bradshaw hopes to improve the team’s competitiveness and bring more players into the sport. He said his hiring in late May 2026 and not teaching at Alton until this year made recruiting players difficult for the inaugural season.
“I’m hoping we can compete more,” Bradshaw said, “and get more of our girls out. I had a lot come up to me in the hallways and said this is an awesome sport, but me being a late add, hired in late May, and not teaching there until this year, it was hard to get some of these girls out. But, I feel like going forward, our numbers are going to continue to grow, and we’re just going to get better.”
Bradshaw cited the team’s younger players as a reason for optimism about flag football’s future in Alton.
“We have a really strong sophomore class, we’ve got some really talented freshman players, and that’s going to lead us going forward,” he said.
