Coming out of a challenging football season last year, the school’s new freshman team has picked it up with a new twist: a female player. Freshman Shyan Rader makes her mark as the second female player to ever play on a Carlsbad football team. Although the freshmen season didn’t start off strong, the team is confident that the season will get better and that it will represent Carlsbad’s freshmen in the best way possible.

“I think we played the best team we are ever going to play our first game, and we didn’t do our best,” freshman Troy Bloomquist said. “But, I’ve played Pop Warner with some of the other players before so we already have chemistry– we just need to work on it.”

Despite the fact that all the players have experience playing together, it’s Rader’s first year playing with the boys. She has only just begun to settle in, and with her past soccer experience, she is an ideal kicker for the freshman team.

“I’ve played soccer for a long time,” Rader said. “Also, my brother played football when he was younger, and he played kicker just like I do right now. He just kind of inspired me.”

Although she says it was a little strange at first, she’s grown comfortable with being the only female in a male-dominated sport. The team has made a point of having team bonding exercises to unify them, so they have chemistry on the field. Rader has proved she is keeping up with the guys and is proud of her achievements so far.

“I knew most of them from middle school, so I’m already really good friends with all of them,” Rader said. “We also did a team bonding exercise called Lift-o-Thon where we had to see who could lift the most weights. I kept up with the guys, and I was really proud of myself.”

The freshman football team builds the foundation for the JV and varsity teams to come, so the team’s hard work and dedication will pay off. Rader assures us that she, along with the rest of the team, will not give up, despite any challenges that come their way.

 Correction: earlier versions of this article incorrectly listed Rader as the first female to play football for CHS. Taylor Blunt also played for Carlsbad Football in 2006 and 2007 and went on to play for the San Diego Sting.