CHICAGO (NewsNation Now) — Football season is well underway, and it’s always been a male-dominated sport, but for one high school team in Chicago, there is something special happening — girl power.
The De La Salle Institute’s football program has not one but two female kickers, Mia and Sissi Loza, and they’re sisters.
Mia told NewsNation she was managing the school’s boy’s soccer team, along with her sister, when a coach spotted her kicking balls into a field and suggested she try out for the boy’s high school kicking position.
“I was there after school with the boys soccer just practicing, kicking the balls around, and Coach Bame saw me, he’s like ‘let’s try a field goal, see what you could do,” Mia said. “So we tried it out, and I made it. He was impressed, and we kept doing it, and he was like, let’s get you on the team.”
Without hesitation, Mia joined the team. Meanwhile, Sissi was recruited to be on the boy’s junior varsity team.
“The next year, we went back in the summer, they had practiced for football, and she would practice her kicking,” Sissi recalled. “I was there too, and I’d also practice with her, and they found me, and they said, ‘well you can ve a kicker for JV.'”
While they’re currently in high school, both sisters said if they’d be open to the idea of furthering their careers with collegiate sports.
“I feel like if we had the opportunity, I’d take it,” Mia said. “I feel like it would be a big thing, not for the whole world but for girls; showing them that we could do it also.”
“I think we’ve inspired a lot of people,” Sissi said. “Since we’re girls playing on a football team, I think, like if anyone sees us, they could think that they could do anything they want.”