High school girls flag football has officially arrived in North Carolina.
After the sport was sanctioned this spring and months of offseason buildup, all six Wilmington-area teams opened the 2026 season Wednesday, Sept. 9, at Ashley High School.
North Brunswick and West Brunswick were among the teams making their program debuts, bringing sanctioned flag football to Brunswick County for the first time. South Brunswick did not field a team this fall.
New Hanover and Hoggard opened the evening before Ashley and West Brunswick closed out the three-game slate. Future regular-season games will be split between two host sites each week.
Here’s what we learned from the first night of sanctioned high school girls flag football in Wilmington.
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Hoggard starts fast in rout of New Hanover
The first sanctioned flag football game in Wilmington history ended early.
Hoggard cruised past New Hanover 21-0, triggering what officials called a mercy rule with two minutes left in regulation and giving the Vikings a convincing start to the 2026 season.
Hoggard quarterback Elisabeth Gillespie threw two touchdown passes and caught another as the Vikings took control early and never gave New Hanover much room to respond.
“I think we were really excited about the first year of sanctioned sport,” Gillespie said.
Junior rusher Aaliyah Wright Lewis helped anchor a Hoggard defense that didn't allow a point. After months of practicing against teammates, Wright Lewis said finally lining up against another team brought more excitement than nerves.
“I feel like we weren’t really nervous … we were excited to finally see what it’s like going against the other teams this year.”
North Brunswick defense overwhelms Laney
Laney quarterback Lucy Devane entered the season as one of Wilmington's most dangerous players with the ball in her hands.
North Brunswick didn't give her many opportunities to show it.
The Scorpions contained Devane for much of their program debut and pulled away late for a 20-6 win, with freshman linebacker Neveah Ngo providing the decisive play on a pick-six.
“I was really scared to be honest,” Ngo said. “I kept thinking I was going to drop the ball, but once I got it, I was like, ‘Oh, this is good.’”
The victory was also the first for North Brunswick coach Dante Lombardi, whose players had waited years for an opportunity to represent the school in the sport.
“The girls wanted it … they’ve been wanting it for three years,” Lombardi said. “We just told them to come out and compete and do our best.”
One game into the program's existence, North Brunswick already has its first win.
Sanctioned flag football is still a learning process
Flag football may now be an officially sanctioned NCHSAA sport, but Wednesday night offered plenty of reminders that almost everyone involved is still adjusting.
Players and coaches are learning a standardized rulebook while officials are adapting to a sport that looks familiar to tackle football but operates differently in several important ways.
The 2026 season is the first played under standardized NFHS flag football rules, which still permit some variation in areas such as field dimensions.
That made Wednesday as much an introduction to the sanctioned version of the sport as it was the beginning of a season.
The football itself should change quickly, too. Teams entered Week 1 with limited film on their opponents and little idea how their own schemes would translate against unfamiliar competition.
After one night, Wilmington's six teams finally have something they didn't have throughout the preseason: actual games to study.
Ashley makes an early statement
Ashley entered the sanctioned era with more flag football history than any other Wilmington-area program, and the Screaming Eagles looked the part Wednesday.
Ashley rolled past first-year West Brunswick 40-7 in the final game of the evening, producing the largest offensive output of any area team as Caroline Smist threw three touchdowns.
The result gave Ashley a convincing opening win after the program won the inaugural statewide championship in 2024 and reached the title game again in 2025, before the sport received NCHSAA sanctioning.
Final scores
- Hoggard 21, New Hanover 0
- North Brunswick 20, Laney 6
- Ashley 40, West Brunswick 7
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: 4 things we learned from Wilmington's historic first night of flag football
