Warner finished off a perfect season the hard way. The Royals beat Keiser 13-6 in the NAIA women’s flag football invitational final at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, to claim the first invitational championship in the sport and close the year at 24-0.
Warner’s Jessica Finley sealed it with an interception of Keiser quarterback Ava Wallace with 11 seconds left, ending a final that stayed tight until the last snap.
How the bracket turned into an all Sun final
The field began with the kind of opening round that made the rest of the week feel live right away. Warner rolled past Saint Francis 46-6, while Baker knocked off Hope International 43-13.
Keiser also handled business early, beating Kansas Wesleyan 34-26 before adding a stronger statement later in the day with a 20-13 win over Ottawa to reach the semifinal stage.
Keiser’s run was built on a big day from Ava Wallace, who threw for 333 yards and four touchdowns in the win over Kansas Wesleyan and then added 308 yards and two touchdowns against Ottawa.
In the Ottawa game, Keiser erased a halftime deficit and shut the Braves out over the final two quarters, while Dakota Moberg broke her own record with 16 flag pulls in the opener.
The Seahawks entered the final at 16-5 and had pushed Warner harder than anyone else in the tournament.
The championship game followed that same pattern. Keiser struck first, taking a 6-0 lead on a Wallace touchdown pass to Ashlea Klam, and Warner spent much of the first half without a score.
The Royals finally tied it in the second half, then went ahead late in the fourth quarter before protecting the lead with the game ending interception.
That made the final an all-Sun Conference matchup between the top two teams from the regular season picture, with Warner’s unbeaten run intact and Keiser finishing as the runner-up after one of the most competitive pushes of the tournament.
The event also included Saint Francis, which ended its first season with a loss to Warner, and Hope International, which fell to Baker in the opening round.
The bigger takeaway from IMG Academy is that the sport is now producing a real postseason feel.
The invitational field came together as an eight-team double-elimination bracket, and the final gave it exactly the kind of finish a growing college sport needs: a perfect champion, a close runner-up, and a tournament that had genuine drama from the start.
