By RICHIE HALL
WESTFIELD – The spirit and camaraderie of Unified sports was on full display at Grand Park last Saturday, as it hosted the IHSAA Unified Flag Football state championship game.
One of the teams playing in the title game came from a nearby school. Carmel took on DeKalb for the state championship, with the Greyhounds winning their first-ever Unified title by defeating the Barons 68-45.
Carmel scored the game’s first three touchdowns and held a sizable lead for most of the game. By the final few minutes of the game, several players from both teams scored touchdowns and were cheered on by members of both schools, a perfect showcase of what Unified sports are supposed to be.
“This whole week was our Fall Break, and these kids, they didn’t care,” said Greyhounds coach Jamie Stephen. “They’re like, ‘We’re going!’ I know Fall Break doesn’t seem like much, but these kids giving up a break, giving up all their social time. They gave 100 percent four days a week. They have practice, they go all in.”
This is the sixth year for the Unified Flag Football state tournament. The game is played on a shorter field; teams have four downs to cross midfield and get a first down, then they get another set of downs to score a touchdown.
If a team scores, it then has a choice to go for a one-point conversion from the five-yard line, or for a two-point conversion from a longer distance. Both Carmel and DeKalb opted to go for two most times.
The game was played in front of a large and loud crowd at the Grand Park Events Center. Stephen described the reaction her team had when it entered the facility.
“It was amazing,” she said. “Everybody was in awe of how big it was. And then when we got a locker room – we’ve never had a locker room – so the kids were so excited to have a locker room.”
Stephen remembered that three of this year’s seniors joined the team when they were freshmen, and “they had so much fun that they were like, ‘Coach, we’re going to bring our friends.’ “And I knew then, this was going to change. And over the years, each time we had more and more of these kids growing. Three boys, freshmen at the time, but then they brought their girls, their boys, their friends with disabilities. They built this program.”
Brayton Gray is one of the players on the Carmel Unified team. He called the state championship “a long time coming,” since the ‘Hounds had lost in the regional championship game the past two years.
“It just feels good to come here and pull out the win,” said Gray.
Stephen said there were 30 seniors on this year’s team. The coach said that “obviously not all of them could have been on the roster, but they’re all there, still on the sidelines, and they were giving 100 percent, even on the sidelines. They didn’t care that they weren’t playing. They knew not everyone could be on the roster, but they still contributed just as much as those that were playing.”
Gray said he’s been with the team “for three years, and seeing everyone grow. And everyone’s a senior this year, so it’s kind of like an all or nothing. So, it just feels good to finally have everyone come together as a team to pull out the win.”