“I’m thinking goal line,” says Erica Rico, speedy senior back for University City’s flag football team, on a pitch-or-fake play assistant coach Scott Giron has installed in the Centurions’ offense.

If Rico gets the pitch from quarterback Kiana LeFear, she’s headed laterally on a jet sweep toward pay dirt. If not, LeFear, who sports a pretty good arm, fakes the toss and is looking for one of her targets, including junior Courtlyn Mitchell, who leads the Cents with 19 receptions for 343 yards in six games, including four touchdowns.

On a recent Monday, head coach Brian Josten’s team earned a hard-fought defensive battle against visiting Kearny, 12-8. With LeFear gone, sophomore Briana Garcia and senior Dani Ruiz shared QB duties. Garcia, throwing a nice spiral, landed two TD passes on 8-for-25 passing and 78 yards.

Directing the defense from the back is safety Avi Schorr, an athletic junior with five interceptions, including one against Clairemont in another win on Thursday, Sept. 19. She gets her awareness of the field from her experience as a center back in soccer.

“I look where the opposing quarterback is looking, then I’ll go to that area,” says Schorr of her straight-forward approach to picking off the ball.

Mitchell, the receiver, shares the team lead in interceptions with five, also getting one in the win over Clairemont.

“We just try to keep the energy up, the enthusiasm up,” says Josten, in his second year of coaching the newly-introduced sport, which has to compete with established sports like field hockey, girls volleyball, tennis, and cross country for athletes, as well as field space with UC’s boys football team and field hockey teams. “With the win (over Kearny), it puts a little more wind in their sails. They’re a lot more excited, and they want it again” when the squad wins.

Rico, the fleet running back, is an entrepreneur with a clothing brand through her website. Why an entrepreneur? “I model and people like me if I wear gear to school.” She’s also looking to buy and sell real estate. These days in high school aren’t like those of her grandmother or other previous generations.

Why flag football? “My brother used to play football here,” Rico said. “He also wore number five.”

The coaches had the girls play “Sharks and Minnows” during practice on Wednesday, Sept. 18, to get the energy up. The 18 or so team members present were laughing as they lunged for each other’s flags. Rules changed from last year to two flags on a player’s belt, down from three (one more in the back) a year ago. In the game, two sharks start, facing the many minnows who have to run width-wise across the field without getting caught. Suddenly there are four or five sharks, on the final try even more, imposing their will on the few minnows left.

“Wanting it again,” in Josten’s words, the Cents won again last week, 14-7, over Clairemont. This could be a growing thing.