Perhaps it's no surprise that senior Ana Olander scored the winning touchdown for the Fox Chapel Area High School seniors.

She plays rugby, and she relishes a chance to play an aggressive sport such as football that is usually associated with boys.

"I love the intenseness of the game," she said. "Girls can be tough, too."

This version of the game is powder puff football, played by all-girl teams of juniors versus seniors and coached by male football players at the school's James M. Burk Stadium.

For decades, powder puff football has been a Western Pennsylvania tradition not only at Fox Chapel but also at high schools such as Baldwin, Bethel Park, Deer Lakes, Keystone Oaks, Mt. Lebanon, South Allegheny, Thomas Jefferson and West Mifflin Area.

Fox Chapel has had its game for more than 25 years, and the Bethel Park High School competition dates to the 1950s.

"Just about every school and class has a powder puff football game," said PIAA referee Mark Lang of Brentwood, who was among four officials for the Fox Chapel game last week.

Some schools play just for fun, and others play for fun and a purpose, such as raising money for the prom or a charity.

Fox Chapel's game, which drew about 300 spectators, raised $2,200. Ten percent of that will be spent on Giant Eagle gift cards to go confidentially to needy families at the high school. The rest will go to the 2011 prom fund. In addition, 13 boxes of food were donated to a food bank.

There are variations in the tradition at each high school. Mt. Lebanon has girls' flag football as part of an intramural program, leading to a game for charity against Upper St. Clair. The junior-senior game at Deer Lakes includes a halftime performance by the marching band and male cheerleaders. Bethel Park's junior-senior game always kicks off Homecoming Week.

Powder puff football typically is played as a single fall game of flag football, most commonly juniors versus seniors. Each player wears a belt with four flags hanging on it. If an opponent pulls a flag off, the player is considered tackled. Players typically do not wear football pads or helmets.

That doesn't mean the game isn't physical. Players sometimes make contact, run through defensive lines and go down. Occasionally, a player is injured.

Many of the girls are competitive athletes in other sports, such as rugby, soccer, swimming, softball, basketball and volleyball.

And the players certainly don't want to give up the bragging rights to winning the game.

Fox Chapel's team preparations include ordering $25 football jerseys with names on the backs -- the juniors will be able to wear their red shirts next year when the upcoming juniors wear white -- and going to a few practices.

The six student coaches for each team have to figure out how to teach all the basic skills in a matter of hours. The seniors had a coach who will play Division I football, lineman Miles Dieffenbach, who plans to go to Penn State.

The coaches have to figure out how to organize players -- 45 seniors and 61 juniors -- so that all have a chance to play. There are no bench warmers here.

Then there's face painting on game day. Some players had simple lines of red or black beneath their eyes. Others had more elaborate paintings, even including sequins, using the school colors of red and white with black accents.

The game opened with the National Anthem, followed by four 10-minute periods and a 10-minute halftime.

No one scored in the first half, and the juniors got the first touchdown of the game in the third quarter when quarterback Meg O'Sell -- who plays softball and had been in the finals for the NFL Punt, Pass and Kick contest -- crossed the goal line.

But only seniors scored after that, with Gabby Jennings, a basketball player, scoring the seniors' first touchdown, followed by Ana's in the final minute of the game.

In the fourth quarter, junior Lindsey McKamish, a basketball player who had been running the football, went down and was taken out on a stretcher. A few days later, Lindsey said she had a sore neck, but would be OK. She said she wasn't sure what happened but others told her she was tackled and someone fell on her.

"I had a lot of fun even though I got hurt," said Lindsey. "I think it's a really good sport and a good thing to do. The girls never really get to play football."

The final score: 14-6.

"They played hard; we played hard," Matt Sasson, a coach of the junior team, told the players. "They just made more plays than us."

The loss didn't dampen the enthusiasm of junior Maddie Bass, who played on the offensive line although a more common activity for her is musical theater.

"I love powder puff. It's fun to be with a team and work hard," she said after the game.

"We gave the seniors a run for their money," said junior Sarah Williams, who plays volleyball and swims. "It was a blast."

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