Girls’ flag football is a new sport in the Santa Clarita Valley, but Hart is one of four teams to be getting ready for a second year, and this season they want to win the Foothill League again.
The Hart High School Hawks are rolling into 2025 with high expectations for themselves after the team went 17-6 overall and 9-0 in league play.
With the records and achievements the team had last season, head coach Josh Masmela doesn’t want the feats of 2024 to be the ceiling for his team. Instead, he wants to build upon that success.
“Last year being in our first season, we didn’t really know what to expect going into it,” Masmela said. “I think our team last year really meshed together with the girls and we had a historic season. But last year really set a high bar for us, so going into this year, we’re really trying to see if we could exceed expectations.”
To start off this season, Masmela is in a retooling phase, getting his team up to speed for 2025. After last season’s quarterback Zoey Guzman graduated, the team is holding a competition to see who’ll be slinging the ball for the Hawks this year.
Two names to keep an eye out that Masmela is trying out in the backfield are freshman Shelbie Ratzlaff and sophomore Hannah Cook.
“[Ratzlaff] brings a lot of athleticism to the quarterback position, never played quarterback, but she has the tools to be successful for us,” Masmela said. “Cook, she’s one of our varsity softball pitchers. She’s got a really strong arm, But again, just inexperience is something that is something we’re trying to get through for both those quarterbacks.”
For Masmela, to have the talents of Ratzlaff this season as a freshman, he’s very excited to see her potential grow, on and off the field.
“She’s very mature for a freshman. She’s someone that the seniors even look to during practices, scrimmages and games,” Masmela said. “They believe in her, and it’s a matter of her just getting more experience so she can believe in herself and really help our team with our success hopefully this season.”
On the receiving corps expect to see first-team all-league selection Jessica Gutierrez as the No. 1 receiver and sophomore Natalie Williams alongside her.
Williams, who played last season as a freshman, goes into this next year with higher expectations from her head coach..
“She played varsity last season as a freshman, but I think she has a ton of potential just to kind of reach a new level that she did last year,” Masmela said. “I think she’s taking big leaps going into this offseason and going into the new season.”
At running back, sophomore Avery Smith is expected to round out the offense along with Gutierrez and Ratzlaff.
“She’s our reigning junior varsity offensive player of the year,” Masmela said. “She brings a lot of explosiveness to the offense. So, again she’s just someone that I think with more experience will be a lot better and bring a lot more big plays for our offense.”
At defense Masmela will have a key returner in Nathalia Raio at linebacker, who he believes will be big this season.
“She’s really the heart and soul of our defense,” Masmela said. “She’s just someone who loves playing flag football. You can tell how passionate she is about it. So she’s definitely someone our team leans on in critical times, and she’ll make big plays for us.”
Other linebackers who be making the jump from junior varsity to varsity and expected to make big contributions this season will be Genisis Bray, Melodi Mendez and Sayda Lazo.
In the secondary, returner Natalia Fernandez is coming back for her senior year looking to replicate the success she had in 2024.
“She’s the field general in the backfield there,” Masmela said. “She led the league and our team in interceptions at 11. She looks to kind of replicate that. She set a standard for herself to beat that number.”
At corner Masmela will have two players in Kadence Bailey and Iley Mitchell. Both are returners who will control the backfield on defense and play alongside newcomer Rylee Prieto.
This season Hart is ready to make a deep run in the CIF playoffs, but also acknowledge the road to success this year will be different with new teams in the picture.
“League is our No. 1 goal,” Masmela said. “We would love to replicate the undefeated title as well, but just winning league, we understand a lot of new teams are hungry. We have a target on our back, but we’re just going to kind of keep working hard and do what we can to be undefeated and reigning back-to-back league champions.”
Hart has already started the season 1-1, with a win against Citrus Valley and a loss to Chino to start off the year.
The team has its next game on Saturday at home against Bishop Amat and opens league competition on Monday at Valencia.
