Sports

Detroit's Unbeaten Football Team: The Pride Win Opener, 17-13, Over Toledo

April 26, 2015, 1:26 PM by  Alan Stamm

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The new team tweets this celebration photo.

 

Get this: Detroit has a never-beaten football team.

Well, to be more precise: The Detroit Pride won its first game Saturday as part of the national Independent Women's Football League, beating the Toledo Reign by 17-13. 

Khey Carter Berry of the Pride scored both Detroit touchdowns and Kamry Miller kicked a field goal, a team representative tells Deadline.

The two Great Lakes region rivals, who played at MLK High on Detroit's near-east side, have a May 15 rematch in Ohio. Detroit's next home game is June 6 against the Portland Rebels, a team from Maine.


Friday's original article:

A different kind of club-level football team, the Detroit Pride, plays its first game Saturday night at home against the Toledo Reign.

All competitors are women, playing the sport's full-contact version, as Michigan Radio reporter-producer Kate Wells describes:

At a recent evening practice, team members trickled in after work and school, stretching, putting on full pads, taking a couple laps around the field. . . .

Since January, the team’s been practicing four days a week – rain, snow, whatever. . . .

Of course, nobody here has played full-tackle football before. Unlike men, these women never had the chance to play pee-wee, high school or college football. So getting adults to the level of play that fans expect for a football game takes a lot of time. You're not just learning the playbook. You're learning how to block.

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The broadcast journalist talks with head coach Trey Craig and some of the athletic women who "grew up wanting to play football," such as tight end Jayla Brown, 18:

"I have all sisters and we're always wrestling at home and stuff together. . . . Now I can do it, and don't nobody yell at me for doing it no more.

"My daddy had me while he was in high school. And so he took me to all of his games with him. So and then he played semi-pro for the Saints semi-pro team. And so we always watching. I was like, I want to play too! And so when I heard about this I asked him, and he said yeah."

Another player, quarterback Danetta Jameson, tells Wells that two teammates are sidelined with broken ankles. "We haven't even had our first game and we're losing people already," the recent University of Michigan graduate says.

Kickoff for that debut, one of two home games this season, is at  8 p.m. at Martin Luther King High School, 3200 E. Lafayette Ave.

Tickets are $10, or $7 for students (ID required) and fans aged 5-13. The Motor City Heat All-Star Band and a DJ will entertain, and gates open for tailgating at 6 p.m.  

The Pride has entry-level status as an "affiliate team" in the Independent Women's Football League, a 15-year-old national group. Saturday opponent from Toledo has been around since 2003, though this is its first year as a full-level league member.

Detroit's five-game season, which ends June 6 with a home game , features a May 15 rematch in Toledo and road games in Montreal and Philadelphia.  

This city has another full-tackle team for women -- the Detroit Dark Angels, who play at John Glenn High in Westland -- where they lost last Staurday's season opener against Chicago. The next game is May 2 in Grand Rapids.

The Dark Angels are part of the Women's Football Alliance league.  


Read more:  Michigan Radio


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