Takeaways from flag football Capital City Classic after severe weather shortens schedule

Through rain and sun, the fields at the Florida State University SportsPlex played host to the 13th annual flag football Capital City Classic this weekend.

Despite the two days of play being disrupted by Mother Nature, with hours of lighting and rain on Saturday forcing the majority of the games to be canceled, the weekend was still filled with plenty of entertainment.

In total, eight area programs competed in the annual event, with Chiles the only team able to get in multiple full games over the two-day flag football round-robin. With teams coming from as far as Pompano Beach and Pensacola, some of the top flag teams in the state descend upon the state capital.

Even with the weekend's schedule being gutted due to inclement weather, there was still plenty of action to watch for area teams. Here are three storylines we saw at the Captial City Classic.

Chiles embarks on a new journey after Goldstein's retirement

There's a different look to Chiles flag football this season.

With the retirement of legendary head coach Stan 'Goldy' Goldstein and 12 seniors graduating from last season's team, the Timberwolves have officially entered a new era. Under the lead of former assistant coach and now head coach Justin Kurlander, Chiles has rattled off five straight victories after losing the opening two games of the year.

Picking up wins in both of its Capital City Classic games, Kurlander thinks his young squad got the most out of the two games it played. Coming back from down six to beat Tarpon Springs 13-6 Friday night, the Timberwolves overcame throwing four interceptions and a 13-0 deficit against Leto to win 25-13.

"We started the season slowly but we've been telling the girls all year 'Hey, we are young and inexperienced, the only way to get experience is through games," Kurlander said. "After two games being 0-2 to now being 5-2 is huge. It starts with the girls improving every day in practice and then improving in games making adjustments and getting those live reps."

The Timberwolves played nearly a half against Navarre on Saturday afternoon, with the game scoreless before the second weather delay of the day forced it to be abandoned.

The two programs met in Chiles's second game of the season, with the Raiders coming out on top with a 26-6 win, but even though the game never finished Saturday, Kurlander feels his team showed its early season growth in the half of play.

"Our heads haven't gotten down at all we haven't looked like the look of like we don't know what we are doing out here or looking completely completely lost," Kurlander said. "We keep taking punches. We keep getting back up off the floor and competing and that's really important for the girls and then obviously for a young team, they just know how to compete."

Looking to capitalize on its fast start and defend its district crown, the Timberwolves are hoping to pick up on the legacy left by Goldstein.

Kurlander said not having him on the sidelines coaching is still a surreal feeling, but even with that, Goldstein comes out to the Timberwolves games and is always available to help Kurlander with any questions.

"It's very different. I still probably call him once a week asking "What do you do?'," Kurlander said with a slight laugh. "It's very different. It's nice being able to focus on one side of the ball and then having good assistants as well. But it's a different feel without Stan, he's awesome. He's one of a kind."

Lincoln's weekend washed out

The Trojans were slated to play all three of their classic games on Saturday, but with mother nature forcing the cancellation of the first two, Lincoln only got one-quarter of play in during the evening games before the weather delays came back.

After waiting for better weather, the Trojans left Saturday with just a few snaps played.

"It's disappointing because you want to get a chance to play against teams from different areas, but you know that you can't control the weather and things like this happen," Lincoln head coach Brandon Youmans said.

It was a busy week heading into the Capital City Classic for the Trojans, who played Suwannee and Rickards on back-to-back nights, and for a young team Youmans said the week's experience was good for the team.

Heading into spring break, Youmans wants his team to focus on getting recharged as the Trojans play four games four days after break ends.

"We just want to relax for spring break, we played some good games this week and need to get ready for when we get back," Youmans said. "Right back after spring break, we got four games. We play Jefferson County, FAMU DRS, Rickards and Chiles in consecutive days, so we gotta get ready for that."

Early break for area programs

With the aforementioned spring break on the horizon for Big Bend schools, the weekend of severe weather cut competition short for programs and provided an early start to the week-long break.

For Leon, Godby, Florida High, FAMU DRS, Rickards and Wakulla, at least one game was played.

Friday night gave each program a chance to compete, with FAMU DRS the only team to pick up a win out of that group, beating Leto 12-0.

Liam Rooney covers preps sports for the Tallahassee Democrat. Contact him via email at LRooney@gannett.com or on Twitter @__liamrooney

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Severe weather slows down flag football Capital City Classic