May 2, 2025
Wildwood Lady Wildcats Headed to First-Ever State Flag Football Championship as Top Seed
By Kyle Coppola
Wildwood Lady Wildcats Headed to First-Ever State Flag Football Championship as Top Seed
WILDWOOD, Fla. — The Wildwood Lady Cats are making history—and doing it in dominant fashion.
For the first time in school history, Wildwood Middle High School’s flag football team has qualified for the FHSAA Class 1A State Championships. In just the program’s fourth year, the Lady Cats will head to Tampa Bay not only as first-time participants but as the tournament’s No. 1 overall seed.
Wildwood (undefeated) will face No. 4 seed Somerset Canyons of Boynton Beach in the state semifinal at 4 p.m. on Thursday, May 8, at the Buccaneers’ AdventHealth Training Center.
Admission is free, though fans must reserve tickets online through the official FHSAA website.
The trip to states marks yet another milestone for Head Coach Vincent Brown, who has now guided two Wildwood girls’ programs to historic heights in 2025. Brown also led the school’s girls basketball team to the Rural Class State Championship earlier this year. Between basketball and flag football, the Lady Cats’ core group of multi-sport athletes boasts a staggering 37-0 record this school year.
(It’s been an incredible year for head coach Vincent Brown Sr. He helped the Wildwood girls basketball team win a state championship finishing undefeated and now has the chance to do the same with the flag-football team.)
“This group is special,” Brown said. “They’re competitors, leaders, and they represent Wildwood with pride on and off the field.”
Wildwood’s success reflects a larger surge in girls flag football popularity across Florida, where the sport continues to grow rapidly. For the Lady Cats, the goal is now clear—bring home another state title and cap off a perfect year.
We are very proud of these girls! Good luck at the state championships!
Kyle Coppola was born in Newton, Massachusetts and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communications from Curry College in 2016. After traveling to Florida on a family vacation, he decided he could not get enough of the warm weather and made the move from snowy Massachusetts to central Florida 8 years ago.
For the last decade Kyle has gained valuable experience in social media content creation, marketing and sales, writing, video production, sports announcing and even broadcasting for local radio stations, such as FM 102.9 in The Villages and FM 91.5 in Massachusetts. Every year he volunteers at The Villages Charter High School as a play-by-play sports announcer for the football games as well as a public address announcer for the basketball games, including the annual Battle at The Villages Tournament.
Outside the office Kyle is a husband and father to two beautiful girls along with their cat. In his spare time he likes to spend time with his family, travel, play golf and swim. He is also a huge sports junkie and even bigger motorsports fan and loves to attend racing events when he can.
