On February 4, Linganore High School (LHS) senior Rachel Hepner signed her National Letter of Intent to continue her athletic career at Mount Saint Mary’s University, the first Division I institution to add women’s flag football as a varsity sport in the Northeastern United States.
According to Hepner, Mount Saint Mary’s was her school of choice due to its flag football and scholarship opportunities. She received two scholarships to two different schools: Mount Saint Mary’s and Marymount University but ultimately decided that Mount Saint Mary’s had more to offer.
Hepner plans to major in chemistry while attending the university, and eventually pursue a career as a chemical engineer.
Hepner started out her athletic career at LHS on the girls basketball team. However, Hepner became a multi-sport athlete when girls flag football was introduced to the school in her sophomore year.
“I’ve always loved playing football, so it was kind of one of those things I got recruited to play,” Hepner said. “So I just went and tried out.”
According to Hepner’s mom, Danielle Burgess, the shift to flag football was not all sunshine and rainbows.
“[Flag football is] new, right? So the challenges were learning the sport [and] learning how to play the sport,” said Burgess. “This was all a new thing that came along for this high school, so I think getting to know the new sport was the biggest challenge.”
During Hepner’s senior year of high school, she and her flag football team were able to win Linganore’s first-ever state championship against the Calvert Cavaliers.
Rachael Easterday, Hepner’s basketball coach, noted that, “Rachael was a main contributor on the first-ever flag football state championship team here at Linganore High School. She scored 25 touchdowns [and] scored the game-winning touchdown in the regional championship.”
Hepner explained that she is honored to be the first girls flag football team to win states. “It’s definitely one of those things you look at and you’re like, wow, we did that,” said Hepner. “Because nobody else has done it … It’s really good to look at, especially when you go back on it later in life.”
When looking back at her high school career, Hepner shared her belief that working with the girls flag football team helped prepare her for college.
“When we practice every single day, you lift, you watch film and you kind of do all of those same things [in college],” Hepner said. “So I think that’s definitely something that Lignanore helped me prepare for.”
Burgess also noted that over Hepner’s high school career she has greatly improved on being more of a leader and learned how to be more confident.
“She’s definitely grown in her confidence, she’s grown in her ability to be a good teammate, to learn how to play with each other [and] encourage each other,” Burgess said. “She’s definitely much more confident in her sports.”
Hepner had advice for incoming freshmen who want to join the Lignanore girls flag football team.
“Enjoy it,” Hepner said. “Don’t put too much pressure on yourself, because it can definitely get hard at times, but you just have to keep going because it’s definitely worth it.”
