The Southeast Bulloch flag football team is coming off a four-peat after capturing the school’s fourth-straight state title this season. One of the reasons for the Jackets success has been the amount of work they put in during the off season. Recently the Jackets captured the Summer Sizzler tournament in Savannah.

“We played really well considering it was our first tournament and first time back playing since Christmas,” said head coach Marci Cochran. “We got good reps and there were a lot of good teams there. We had some new players like Camille Johnson and Halle Morton step up since we had a couple injured players and they did really well. We're excited about how we played overall. We executed well after the first game and Emma Cate Barron looked great at quarterback and probably has a stronger arm than she did last year. Natalia Odom did her normal thing and looked great as well.

The Jackets only lost three players off of last year’s team and two of them were on defense. Cochran was impressed with how the defense looked especially this early in the season.

“We did a great job of pulling flags,” Cochran said. “We moved Emma Cate over to play some defense and Natalia as well and they did a great job. I think Hali Long has secured her position at rusher and Kristiana Tisby is doing a great job as well.”

Cochran will get her first chance to see the Jackets perform at a national level this coming week as they fly out of Savannah Friday to participate in the first-ever national flag football event called the Unrivaled Flag Nationals in Canton Ohio June 14-15.

“We're super excited about going as far as making the trip and just experience in the whole environment of the national flag football tournament,” Cochran said. “We may a little nervous because we don't know much about the other teams. We know a little about the Florida team but as far as everybody else we don't know much about them so it'll be just fun to see different competition. We're also excited because not only are we playing flag football but we also get to go to pro football Hall of Fame. They have a women’s panel and they’re doing a lot for us on Saturday after our games as well. The kids are pumped up as well.”

The tournament in Canton is scheduled to be streamed live on the GameChanger app.