By Keiran Gorsky
It’s a bittersweet feeling for wide receiver Lara Morand at the end of the 2026 U18 Women’s Tackle Football National Championship. After falling just short at last year’s edition of the budding tournament, Team Ontario returned out west with a vengeance, going 5-0 and outscoring their opponents 183-20.
Morand, who plays for the Bel Air Lions, was one of five Ottawa-area players on Ontario’s gold medal-winning team. She shared the championship with fellow Lion Hannah Whitehorne (offensive line), Cumberland Panthers quarterback Maelle Parthenais and offensive line Audrey Lortie and defensive line Perla Desir of the St. Joseph Jaguars.
The team formed a tight-knit bond over their 10 days together in Saskatchewan. Players spent hours combing through practice footage and devising strategies on sport video platform Hudl. When they were off duty, they enjoyed long, mirthful walks around the University of Regina campus where the tournament was held.
“I’m feeling pretty good,” said Morand, who also kicked competitively for the first time and was named special teams player of the tournament. “Just, you know, it’s kind of hitting me now that I won’t be able to see these girls again after spending 10 days talking with them every day, seeing them every day, having meals with them every day.”
“Over the 10 days, I think I made closer friends than I’ve had with some people that I’ve known my entire life.”
Girls’ football has exploded at the youth level since St. Mark Catholic High School participated in the first official Canadian all-girls tackle game in 2022. The founding of the Ontario Women’s Football League (OWFL) in November of that year has given a starving demographic of young athletes a new platform to apply their talents.
Though it took considerable time to get here, Team Ontario coach Daniel Legros noted, the league faced remarkably little opposition once it was off the ground.
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“Most parents are so happy that young ladies and women are finally getting this opportunity,” said Legros, who also serves as the principal at La Citadelle high school in Cornwall. “There are more parents concerned with their little boys playing football than girls.”
Living in football-crazed households, Parthenais and Morand were both encouraged to take the sport up as soon as it became available. A soccer player before she took up flag football, Parthenais was skeptical at first, but found herself falling in love after just a single training session. She became enticed by the strategy of the game when her flag football team executed a fake handoff.
Parthenais’ father and coach, who played QB in high school himself, soon slotted his daughter in as field general at the under-10 level. She never looked back.
“I like being able to just strategize beforehand [since] it gives me the best advantage possible,” described Parthenais, whom Legros called the best quarterback in the country. “With certain defences, you can just do so much… you always have something you can do to make them fall for something.”
When the opportunity came to transition to tackle, Morand and Parthenais both had quiet reservations. The perpetual pursuit and crunching tackles suddenly become more daunting when you’re the one between the hashmarks. Quickly, though, they learned to brace themselves and embrace the physical challenge.
“I remember my first hit, I was like, oh, wow, like that’s intense, but at the same time, it’s really fun,” laughed Parthenais. “It’s fun to get hit.”
Both became standouts in the OWFL, where Team Ontario drew most of its roster. Opposing defences had no response for Parthenais’ powerful forearm or Morand’s blistering runs through a maze of bodies.
There was little doubt about the team’s capacity to dominate at this year’s tournament, though last year’s overtime loss against Alberta in the gold medal game provided extra incentive. Coach Legros rejigged the coaching staff and held a series of identification camps across the province. Ninety attendees whittled down 65 and finally to 22. Parthenais was among the holdovers from last year’s silver medal-winning team.
Morand attributes the team’s improvement partly to the coaching staff’s insistent contingency planning, but even more so to the close connections teammates fostered over the tournament. Players fed off each other’s energy and comforted each other after missed catches and tackles. Between contests, they also enjoyed spirited games of foosball and table tennis.
“If people were hard on themselves, people were immediately there for them,” recounted Morand, who studies at Peak Centre Academy. “And then that person would have a crazy catch.”
Almost recreationally, players would analyze Hudl footage together and pick out defects in opponents’ defences. Morand would watch and rewatch her cuts and jumps until they were close to perfect.
The on-site commentators promised a close game when Ontario met Quebec in the finals, but Ontario proceeded to score a touchdown on their first punt return. Morand scored a touchdown and kicked 14 conversion points in a 68-8 drubbing while Parthenais threw for a total of 223 yards.
Blaring music on the bus ride back to the hotel, the team danced into the night. Few of them got any sleep before their 3 a.m. flight back to Toronto.
It’s difficult for Morand to see so many new friends going away, some permanently. As things stand, the pathway to the senior level is fragmented – Ontario does not currently send a team to women’s national championships for players 19 and up. The senior women’s national team, meanwhile, has not played a game since 2022.
For their own futures in the sport and their friends’, she and Parthenais are hoping for changes by the time they age out of this level.
“I would like to go as far as [possible] for Team Canada in women’s tackle football,” Parthenais indicated. “Obviously, flag is the Olympic sport now, so I’m also considering that. And just even in the future, if I don’t end up playing, I still want something to do in football, whether it’s sports medicine or maybe coaching.”