Are they ready for some football?
The Capital Pioneers are.
The Salem-based team is about to kick off its second season as a member of the Women’s Football Alliance, a national organization with more than 60 teams playing tackle football.
The Pioneers will open a six-game regular season with a home game on April 9 against the Oregon Cougars (Eugene).
Other home games are April 23 against the Seattle Spartans and May 28 versus the Portland Shockwave.
All home games will be at McNary High and start at 5:30 p.m.
The Pioneers also will play games on the road April 30 against the Shockwave, May 7 at the Kern County Crusaders and May 21 at Seattle.
Playoffs are slated to begin on June 11.
The Pioneers will be decked out in new uniforms for their second season of women’s football.
The uniforms were unveiled last week in the team colors of black and gold – black for when the team is home and gold for away games.
Sprague High graduate Mike Putnam is head coach. He’s coached at Western Oregon and Willamette, as well as at six high schools, and currently is the defensive line/assistant offensive line coach for Sprague. He teaches social studies at Cascade High.
The Pioneers’ assistant head coach and defensive coordinator is Tim Valdivieso. He is coaching at South Salem High and has six years’ experience on the staff at Aloha.
Jeron Tobar is line coach, and Polanski coaches defensive backs and receivers and handles recruiting.
The Pioneers had a strong inaugural season, going 6-1 in 2021, with two victories apiece over Portland and Seattle. Capital got into the playoffs, but fell to a strong Arizona Outkast team on a 110-plus-degree day in Phoenix.
The WFA championship game is set to be played again this year at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
Players, who can be age 18 and up, generally are eligible if they are within a 60-mile radius of Salem and no farther north than Wilsonville.
The 2022 Pioneers include 12 Salem residents and four players from the Dallas area, Polanski said.
Holly Bratley of Dallas plays defensive back and is one of three quarterbacks, and Kathy Rhoades of Dallas is a first-year player up front.
Katie Girten, assistant coach of the Western Oregon women’s basketball team, can play quarterback, defensive back, wingback or wide receiver, and Maria Bonifacio-Sample of Independence returns to the line.
Other Pioneers come from Keizer, Lebanon, Canby, Aurora, Aumsville, Stayton and elsewhere.
Skill levels and football savvy vary.
“One player said she’d never even watched a football game,” Polanski said, but another player is applying for the WFA’s international all-star travel team.
“It’s adult women who really want to play football,” Polanski said.
The Pioneers operate as a “family,” he added, and “the players rally around each other and help each other out.”
Team practices typically take place on Wednesday evenings at a private location, the home of Dr. Cole Johnson, owner of Salem’s Johnson Family Orthodontics, and on Saturday afternoons at Chemawa Indian School.
The Pioneers are part of the non-profit Salem Women’s Football Association, which formed in September 2019. Rebecca Fineran is SWFA president.
Fineran also plays tight end and on the defensive line, but has been recovering from November knee surgery. She hopes to be back for the season opener.
It’s a family affair for the Finerans. Rebecca’s husband, Ryan – both of whom served in the Marine Corps – is the SWFA treasurer and handles game-day operations. Their two teenage daughters help with admissions and concessions at home games.
Key team sponsors include Meduri World Delights, Capitol Toyota, Charter Construction and Forshey Training Systems.
The association plans to add a flag football team called the Cherry City Bombers, hopefully in August.
And, according to Polanski, the association also will have a youth flag football team, probably kicking off next year.
