ROCKFORD — Stephanie Raymond-Young said she didn't know how to throw when she was first picked to play quarterback for the Chicago Blitz in a women's indoor football league.
She threw five TD passes in her second game, a last-second 34-28 win over the Seattle Thunder on Saturday night at the BMO Harris Bank Center in downtown Rockford. That win clinched a spot for the Blitz in the championship game of the X-League's inaugural season.
"It was amazing," said Raymond-Young, a former Rockford Lutheran and NIU basketball star as she chatted with fans in the first row of the stands after the game. "I can't describe how I feel right now. Winning in my home town with our community behind us ... Winning with my family here. Clinching playoffs. It’s amazing. You can’t beat that feeling."
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Raymond-Young completed 8 of 13 passes for 90 yards and five TDs on the 50-yard field. That included deep routes of 29 and 20 yards for TDs and a 19-yarder on a crossing route where her receiver made a fingertip grab perfectly in stride.
"Shout out to my teammates," Raymond-Young said. "They made plays. I get the ball to where they are supposed to be and they make plays and they catch it."
On her final play, Raymond-Young leaped high to make a one-handed grab of a bad snap and then delivered a 3-yard TD pass. Before that, she showed why she was picked to play QB in the first place. The Blitz took over at their own 10, trailing 28-26 with 29.9 seconds left. On first down, Raymond-Young scrambled 25 yards, breaking away from the pass rush, zipping down the right sideline and then cutting back up field before taking a big hit. After two incomplete passes, she scrambled again, gaining 12 yards before she was brought down with a big hit at the 3.
"I love the hits," said Raymond-Young, who finished with 92 yards rushing on seven carries. "I take all the hits. I always say, compare me to Lamar Jackson. He doesn’t shy away from hits and I don’t either. I embrace it."
This women's football league, backed by former Chicago Bears legend Mike Ditka, strays from the footsteps of two previous indoor women's football leagues and concentrates on football, not looks. It was 7-on-7. Players wore tight shorts and knee-high socks. The 25-yard line was midfield. There were no goal posts or punts or kicking game of any kind — teams started at the 10-yard line after TDs or wherever the other team was stopped on a failed fourth-down try. On passing downs, every defensive player would often line up 3 or 4 yards behind the line of scrimmage, while three cameramen — filming the game for people to watch on Fan Pass — sometimes were closer to the quarterback than the running backs were.
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But it was still football. Good football. With hard hits and quarterbacks throwing 20- and 30-yard spirals. Seattle quarterback KK Matheny threw one perfect 37-yard TD pass that traveled almost 40 yards in the air and dropped into her well-covered receiver's fingertips to give Seattle a 14-13 lead with 21 seconds left in the first half.
"The girls are no joke," said strong safety Emma Vanderheyden, a 2008 Guilford graduate who played soccer, volleyball and cross country in high school. "We all have different athletic backgrounds, from professional basketball players to Olympic qualifying track athletes."
Vanderheyden has been playing women's football since 2019, previously playing in the Legends Football League.
"This was the hardest-hitting game I have experienced in four years," said Vanderheyden, who sported a bloody lip to illustrate the point.
"On the second play of the game, I got elbowed right in the bottom lip. It opened it up a little bit. This is not a joke, no. I never experienced such hard blocking from the other side."
The game seemed to be a hit with the fans — what few of them there were. And well over 100 of them stayed around after the game for a meet and greet session with the players.
"It's going to take a minute," Vanderheyden said of the sparse crowd. "It’s taken this long just to get women’s football in the spotlight, so we just have to keep coming."
This hasn't been much of a season, with eight teams each playing two regular-season games. But the teams have been in major cities — Chicago (although it's one home game was in Rockford), Atlanta, Seattle, Los Angeles, Denver, Kansas City, etc. And by not trying to play too much, too early, the league made sure it put a quality product on the field.
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"No, it was too long," disagreed Raymond-Young. "We had a two-month break from our first game. I didn't like it. I didn't like it at all. I want to be on the field. I love football so much and our team is just so eager to hit each other and prepare for the next game. I can’t wait until next year.
"I wish we had this back in the day. I don’t know if I would have given up my basketball shoes so early, but football is definitely competing with it right now."