BY JEREMY GOODE

(PHOTOS BY BRENDAN BALDWIN)

PHILA.-- For Gwynedd Mercy Academy girl’s flag football coach Tim Quinn, it is the journey that makes the destination that much more special. For the last two years, his Gwynedd Mercy teams have competed at the Girls Flag Football Championships at NovaCare Complex, hosted by the Philadelphia Eagles. They returned to campus both times empty handed.

Not this year.

In their third time competing at the Girls Flag Football Championships, Gwynedd Mercy Academt won the PA championship, defeating Lansdale Catholic 14-6 for their first title in school history, on Sun., June 1 at the NovaCare Complex.  

While Quinn has been waiting for this moment for years, it was the night before, in which the team gathered at the school on a Saturday to watch a Disney movie together as a team, that really put the season into perspective.

“We sat and watched Remember the Titans, and as I watched, it really brought everything full circle,” Quinn said. “I’m going to remember today, that was fun, but I’m going to remember yesterday, where we sat as a team, in the school, on a Saturday by ourselves, and just came together.”

It is a tight knit Gwynedd Mercy team. Over 40 girls are on the team, a challenge which Quinn and his coaching staff had to figure out. Quinn ultimately decided to include everyone. After all, the Eagles and local schools are trying to grow the game.

Quinn brought everyone on. And everyone had a role.

Many of the players this season had never played football before. We’ll get back to that.

Gwynedd Mercy had a good culture of winning during the regular season. It was just a matter of finishing the job and winning the state championship that had stumped them for the past two seasons.

Two years ago, Quinn’s squad fell to Abington in the championship game. In the same game last season, Archbishop Wood defeated Gwynedd Mercy. Gwynedd Mercy had been through it. But it was not as if they would ever be given the title through sympathy. They would have to earn it on their own.

The first test for the 2025 Gwynedd Mercy team was the regular season. They went undefeated. The second test, winning their league title. They did that, beating Spring-Ford in late May to win the Independent League championship.

To play Lansdale Catholic in the PA championship game, Gwynedd Mercy would have to get by their semifinal matchup against Abington, a team with several playmakers. A late score and a final stop propelled Gwynedd Mercy to their third consecutive PA championship game. 

The biggest difference between Quinn’s teams in the past and this year’s team?

“I’ll be honest, I prepared more,” Quinn said. “Luckily, I work with my brothers in a family business and they’re all good to me because I think for the last couple of weeks, I’ve spent 20  hours per week doing film and writing notes, drawing up plays and formations and getting them out to the girls.”

It was not a lack of talent that prevented Gwynedd Mercy from hoisting the PA championship for the last few years. Those teams were on the older side. Years of experience helped the program answer questions. The previous teams did all the work they knew how to do. This team did just a little more.

It was fully on display in their championship game win against Lansdale Catholic.

Keira Quinn, Tim’s daughter, led the charge as quarterback. She began the scoring with a 10-yard touchdown run with twelve and a half minutes left in the first half. Lansdale Catholic responded shortly before the two-minute warning with a touchdown, as starting quarterback Devin VanOsten hit Ali Kaltenbacher across the middle for a 30-yard touchdown in which Kaltenbacher escaped a few missed flag pulls.

An unsuccessful point conversion gave Gwynedd Mercy a 7-6 lead going into halftime. Both teams had scored at least in the mid-twenties an hour before in their semifinal matchup, so the low scoring affair was a different experience for both teams.

Quinn knew Lansdale Catholic’s head coach Brandon Reese drew up their offense with a lot of chunk plays to consistently move the ball, so after the Kaltenbacher touchdown, Gwynedd Mercy would keep everything in front of them, keep the long drives coming, all while getting defensive stops.

Gwynedd Mercy stopped Lansdale Catholic every possession of the second half.

Keira wasted zero time in the second half. She moved the ball down field with her legs and threw a two-yard touchdown inside pass to sophomore Rowan Cunningham. They ran the same play for the one-point conversion to go up 14-6 with 15 minutes of play left.

It is a neat play because the ball is pitched to Keira right after the snap and allows Keira to be an eligible runner, so the defense attends to her but then also has to allow for her to be an eligible thrower, where she can dump it off to an open Cunningham.

“When I first line up at the line, I look at CAP (alignment, personnel, coverage), so when I see someone aligned inside or outside that’s how I decide how to take my release,” Cunningham said. “I saw her [defender] aligned outside, so I knew I was taking my speed inside.”

For the final 15 minutes, Gwynedd Mercy got stop after stop. In the final six minutes, they had two interceptions around the goal line as Lansdale Catholic was threatening to score. First, it was Sophie Caufield who intercepted VanOsten inside the five. Then it was the turn of first-year flag football player Reilly Graham to seal the game with an interception on fourth down in front of their goal line.

“I’ve played front yard football with my brothers at Thanksgiving, but this is my first time playing organized,” Graham said. “I knew we couldn’t give up any points… I just went for it; It was all instincts.”

In the beginning of the year Graham signed up to stay active for her main sport, volleyball. Five months later, she would clinch the state flag football championship with the game winning interception.

“I was just hoping for another sport to play; something to keep me conditioned and active,” Graham said. “I could not have asked for this; it’s been amazing.”

Freshman Ava Lapotosky took an end-around into Lansdale Catholic territory, allowing Gwynedd Mercy to take a knee out of victory formation and finally win the PA championship.

The win completed a perfect 13-0 season.

It is a team that has been so close, and in 2025 they were finally able to piece everything together. And they had a feeling they would.

“I had no doubt in my mind, and to see it all pay off in the end is what really makes it so sweet,” Cunningham said. “I wouldn’t change a thing about how my team played.”

Philadelphia Eagles quarterback and Super Bowl LIX MVP Jalen Hurts congratulated the Gwynedd Mercy team at the trophy presentation, and high-fived and gave championship hats to the athletes.

The championship gets the monkey off Gwynedd Mercy’s back. And many of the starters are underclassmen, so the win very well could be the start of a run for years to come.

For now, Gwynedd Mercy celebrates something that was three years in the making.

“At the end of the day, it’s great to win a championship, but it’s really about football family,” Tim Quinn said. “It’s about all of us coming together and fighting and doing the best we can. And at the end of the day, when that leads to something like this, it’s awesome.”

(Photo Gallery by Brendan Baldwin for PSD)