The Everett Reign Women’s football team play their home opener this Saturday, 6pm at Everett Memorial Stadium. The team is 0-2 on the 2016 season, but only in their 4th season, they look to turn things around. “we don’t have the same makeup as previous years, we are really young, but also way more physical and athletic” say’s coach Russo. The Reign players average age is now in their 20’s, instead of the 30’s or 40’s as previous seasons. “We are really young this year. This may be our 4th year, but we seem to have to start over every year with a new crop of rookies, so there’s always going to be a learning curve” said Coach Russo.

Last year’s team seen the momentum of a 2014 playoff appearance fade quickly with the loss of 5 WFA All-American players who left or didn’t play in 2015, and with injuries to key starters the Reign finished the season at 2-6. “We lost some key players to departures and injuries last year. We had some high expectations after making the playoffs the year before, but we were forced to use rookies to fill those voids” coach Russo stated.

With early road losses already this season to the Seattle Majestics 34-0, and a 20-18 loss to the Renegades of Medford, Oregon, the Reign find themselves 2 games back out of 1st place. Things don’t get much easier this weekend, as they play the 1st place Portland Fighting Shockwave. The visiting Portland team is now a combination of the Portland Fighting Fillies and Shockwave, respectively, and Portland has dominated each game they’ve played this season by average of 35 points. “it’s no easy task playing a combined team. We’ve always had very competitive games against them in the past, and I expect this game is going to be much of the same” say’s coach Russo.

The Reign has seen improvement since their week 1 loss to Seattle, and with early bye weeks it allows the Reign to get the extra work in with such a big group of rookies. “our rookies have come along very quickly, but we still have tons of work to do” said coach Russo.

The Reign play in the Pacific NW division of Women’s Football Alliance which has 45 teams nationwide. This is only the 4th season for the Reign, which seems young in comparison with veteran teams like Portland and Seattle who have been around for over 15 years. The Reign plays at home this weekend and next week before going on the road again.

You can purchase tickets and find out more about the Everett Reign on their website everettreign.org or on the league website at wfafootball.net.