52 New Jersey high schools will play girls flag football this spring
Eleven new North Jersey schools will field girls flag football programs this spring in the third year of the club sport underwritten by the New York Jets and Nike.
The Jets made the announcement Wednesday to coincide with National Girls & Women in Sports Day.
There will now be 52 New Jersey teams playing a schedule that starts in mid-April and ends with a New Jersey state championship game on June 10 at the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center in Florham Park. There are 31 teams from the Super Football Conference, 11 from the North Jersey Interscholastic Conference and 10 from the Big Central Conference.
The 11 new schools in North Jersey are: Eastside, Paramus, Passaic, Wayne Hills, West Milford of the Super Football Conference and Garfield, Immaculate Conception, North Arlington, Secaucus, Wallington and Wood-Ridge of the NJIC.
Immaculate Conception is the first non-public school in North Jersey to field a girls flag football team.
Twenty-four new programs were added to the existing group in Long Island, and 13 schools will debut in New York's Hudson Valley, giving the Jets and Nike 107 schools playing under their banner. The Jets also announced that they are launching a flag football league in London, with a season starting April 17 and the championship game on May 22.
In New Jersey, girls flag football is considered a club activity, which allows girls to play while also competing in another sport in the spring. This year, the Jets will host one game per week at the Atlantic Health Training Center and one player will be named Player of the Week with a $1,000 scholarship awarded back to the school in her name.
Passaic Tech won the first New Jersey flag football state championship at MetLife Stadium in 2021, defeating Irvington in the final. Last year, Irvington downed Hawthorne for the New Jersey state title, and Bellmore-Merrick beat Walt Whitman for the Long Island championship.
READ MORE:As Passaic Tech grows into a HS sports power, the rest of the county pays a price
52 New Jersey schools
Super Football Conference: Dickinson, East Orange, Indian Hills, Irvington, Morristown, Passaic Tech, Ramapo, Shabazz, Clifton, Mt. Olive, Nutley, Kennedy, Ridgewood, Union City, Wayne Valley, Weequahic, Central, Paterson Eastside, Essex Tech, Jefferson, Livingston, Montclair, Montville, Newark Lab, Orange, Paramus, Passaic, Wayne Hills, West Milford, West Orange, West Side.
NJIC: Harrison, Hawthorne, Lyndhurst, New Milford, Pompton Lakes, Garfield, Immaculate Conception, North Arlington, Secaucus, Wallington, Wood-Ridge
Big Central: Hillside, Metuchen, Monroe, Sayreville, South Hunterdon, Kent Place, New Brunswick, Plainfield, South Brunswick, Westfield
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ girls flag football: 52 high schools will play in 2023
