Aimee Colson leads Broward County girls flag football honors in 2026

Aimee Colson did not just make Broward County’s all-area girls flag football list. She owned a season that explains why St. Thomas Aquinas keeps sitting at the center of South Florida’s talent pipeline. The junior was named at rusher and wide receiver after helping the Raiders win a district title and a Class 3A regional championship, and her numbers were loud on both sides of the ball: 57 sacks, 63 flag pulls, one interception, 22 catches, 313 receiving yards and five touchdowns.

That kind of production is exactly why Broward’s honors sheet matters. The county now sorts out first-team, second-team, honorable mention and coach-of-the-year recognition, and that structure tells the story of a region where flag football has moved far beyond novelty. The players on the list are not just surviving in a growing sport. They are coming through a system that rewards two-way impact, game-changing defense and quarterbacks or receivers who can swing a playoff bracket.

Colson was not the only Aquinas name to stand out. Senior quarterback Emmi Merhi was named Broward’s player of the year after leading the Raiders to a 3A state runner-up finish, which puts the program’s ceiling in plain view. Merhi gave the offense a true headliner, while Colson gave the Raiders the kind of disruptive edge that can flip field position and force hurried decisions. Put together, they formed the kind of one-two punch that usually shows up only at the deepest schools.

That depth is part of the reason South Florida keeps producing elite girls flag football talent at a disproportionate rate. St. Thomas Aquinas said in 2025 that its flag football team had already won its first district championship in the program’s first four years, a fast climb for a school that now looks like a benchmark program in Class 3A. The competition around it keeps getting sharper too. The inaugural Broward County Girls Flag Football Showcase/Classic drew 32 top Florida high school teams to the Pompano Beach Youth Sports Complex on Feb. 20-21, 2026, giving players a high-level stage before the postseason even began.

The bigger state picture only adds pressure. The Florida High School Athletic Association ran its 2026 girls flag football championships at AdventHealth Training Center in Tampa on May 15-16, with Class 3A among the championship divisions. Broward’s all-area list, led by Colson and Merhi, reads less like a year-end honor roll and more like a preview of who will keep shaping Florida’s next wave of college and national-level talent.