Wildcats Capture Postseason Win, Wrap Up 2024 Season at NAIA Flag Finals

ATLANTA – Making its first appearance on the national stage, the Baker women's flag football team competed in the 2024 NAIA Flag Football Finals last week in Atlanta where the Wildcats earned a postseason victory before closing out their incredible inaugural season.

"It was monumental in terms of experience for the team to be able to compete in their first NAIA Finals," said Baker head coach Willy Perez. "It's such a rewarding experience to be able to travel for the first time like that at the college level and see how big the sport has become to the point where they had an opportunity to play in an actual NFL stadium."

After earning a draw to the three-team Pool A, the Wildcats defeated Midland, 26-12 in their first game of pool play on Wednesday, May 8. In its following game, BU fell to national runner-up Keiser, 52-6 with the pool-play split putting the Wildcats in Bracket B, while the Seahawks moved onto Bracket A where they eventually met up with Ottawa in the championship game.

With Thursday's games being pushed back to the afternoon due to weather, Baker took on Milligan in the second round of Bracket B after the Buffaloes won against Reinhardt in the first round. The Wildcats couldn't hold onto their halftime lead though, falling to Milligan, 19-18 and bringing their postseason run to an end.

The Wildcats went 13-7 overall in the program's inaugural season, including a 7-3 record in road games, and had a midseason stretch where they won six of their seven games.

Posting a 9-4 record in conference play, Baker earned the third seed and reached the semifinals of the KCAC Tournament in April.

"This inaugural season was just magical, everything about the experience for me as a first-time collegiate coach, starting the program and being as successful as we were was just magical," added Perez. "The development of the team and how they progressed, both individually and as a team, is huge for us at this stage of building the program. We had our ups-and-downs throughout the year, but we were able to set the tone for us as a program because of the level of faith we had in each other."

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