‘We want to be good’: 3 years in the making, Menlo flag football’s first CCS Open title showcases excellence

SANTA CLARA — When flag football became a sanctioned girls high school sport in California, schools had to decide how they wanted to approach the sport. 

Menlo School’s response?

“We want to be good,” Menlo athletic director Earl Koberlein recalled his new flag players saying in 2023. 

Menlo isn’t just good. The Knights are the best team in the Central Coast Section after beating Los Gatos 27-13 in the section’s first Open Division championship game, cementing what several observers have thought for years. 

In the third year of girls flag football in the Bay Area, Menlo is the gold standard. 

“It’s not just the first flag Open championship,” Menlo coach Noah Lubarsky said. “It’s our first Open championship in the history of our school. So I’m incredibly happy for the girls and happy for everyone.”

As usual, the centerpiece of Menlo’s success was junior Ava Allen, a four-sport athlete who extends plays and runs through the open field like Menlo assistant coach Steve Young once did for the 49ers. Allen completed three touchdown passes and accounted for four TDs overall.

The best of the bunch was her final one, when she juked multiple Los Gatos defenders, stretched the play out to the sideline and bought just enough time to thread a 4-yard TD to Maren Mulloy.

That throw put Menlo (16-2) up two scores with 2:22 to go, then Menlo’s defense – which pitched a second-half shutout – took over from there. 

“The past two years, obviously, we’ve been really good, really dominant,” Allen said. “But this year, we faced some adversity along the way. To come out on top and be able to win CCS together means a lot. For any of the teams who thought they were better than us, or thought they could beat us, or thought we were falling off, (we proved) to them that we are still the best and we’re still here.”

Despite Menlo’s dominance over the last three years, Los Gatos (22-6) had a real shot to win the game late. The Wildcats drove all the way down to Menlo’s 1-yard line late in the third quarter and faced second-and-goal. 

Then Menlo’s Anika Shah intercepted her third pass of the game on the goal line, giving Menlo a chance to take the lead. 

The Knights didn’t miss it, driving 76 yards on eight plays paid off by a 17-yard Allen scramble to the right pylon for the game-winning touchdown. 

“Ever since my freshman year, we’ve always wanted more football,” Allen said. “It feels like we’re not putting it all on the table when it just ends with a regular season game. So to finally have playoffs to be able to show what we can do under pressure was really special.”

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