MOUNTAIN VIEW — What began as an innocent question after soccer practice last season has become something so unreal for St. Francis senior Courtney Ogren that she smiles and says, “I still don’t know how I got here, to be honest.”

Ogren is the first female place-kicker in the long and storied history of the St. Francis football program, one that is undefeated this season and ranked No. 1 heading into its “Holy War” clash Friday night against rival Bellarmine College Prep in Mountain View.

“I am living my own episode of Friday Night Lights,” Ogren said, smiling. “It’s crazy. There is so much hype around it. It’s completely different from soccer — and there is so much testosterone.”

It was after a soccer practice last season that Ogren, a goalkeeper who has committed to play for Santa Clara University, noticed a bunch of football players throwing a ball around. Just for kicks, she asked if she could try to kick it. The players said sure, go ahead.

“They started me literally on the first yard line,” said Ogren, who knew nothing about the sport. “I just started bombing them and kept moving back and back. They just kept encouraging me.”

Lineman Ryan Moles, a team captain this season, captured Ogren’s debut on video and showed it to the special teams coach.

Soon, word got to head coach Greg Calcagno. “Hey Coach, here’s our kicker for next year,” some of the guys said at lunch.

Calcagno knew about Ogren’s soccer pedigree and that her older brother, Curtis, was a record-shattering swimmer at St. Francis who now competes for Stanford.

“We know she is going to be athletic, from a family standpoint, from a mentality standpoint,” Calcagno said. “If anybody could do it, it was going to be somebody like that.”

Back at home, Ogren’s parents weren’t as enthusiastic as her future teammates. Naturally, they were concerned about her safety and that she was adding more commitments to an already busy schedule that included school and soccer. They also told her that she had to make sure the Santa Clara coaches approved.

“At first, we didn’t say no,” said Ogren’s mother, Susan. “But we strongly discouraged her, for obvious reasons. We explained to her that boys are different from girls. It’s football. It’s a contact sport. They’re aggressive. Not that she’s not used to that. But they’re big and strong. We were just nervous.”

Determined to give it a shot, Ogren did as Calcagno instructed. She left her house every morning at 5:30 to show up for weight lifting and running, the first indication that she was dead serious.

No joke

“I kind of thought it was a joke in the beginning,” running back Cyrus Habibi-Likio said. “She was out kicking field goals, looking great kicking 30 yarders, 40 yarders, and she had no training at all.

“I thought she was just kicking, messing around with all of us. She showed up to morning workouts, and I was kind of like, ‘Is this really happening?’ It was a shock, but it’s awesome. She gives us life to the team. She’s awesome.”

Behind the scenes, Ogren was just as serious as she was in morning conditioning. She pulled up YouTube videos to study how to correctly kick a football. She brushed up on the rules, as her parents suggested, because she had never watched an entire game until the team’s season opener last month at Oak Grove.

She did a Google search to see if other girls had played football.

“There are tons of articles and tons of video of girls playing football,” Ogren said. “I was like, ‘Wow, this is awesome. That could be me.'”

Ogren did not become the starting place-kicker (she doesn’t kick off) until the third game of the season.

Classmates were thrilled to see her get a chance. When she jogged on the field to kick for the first time, Sept. 18 against Atascadero, students chanted, “Courtney, Courtney, Courtney.”

“It was crazy,” Ogren said. “I was running out there and then when I did my steps, I backed up and I was just waiting for the snap, it just all went silent.”

The extra-point try sailed through the uprights. The girl with the blonde ponytail has gone on to make all 10 of her PAT attempts. She is officially 0 for 1 on field-goal tries, although the play last week included a penalty.

Asked about her range, Calcagno said, “She can make it up to 45. That’s pretty darn good. We have a couple who can make it from that distance. From a consistency standpoint, from getting nervous, she has been lights-out good.”

Flying solo

Ogren puts on her uniform in the girls locker room, which at the team’s home field is a hallway’s distance from the boys locker room.

“It is very lonely in my locker room before the game,” she said. “It’s literally just me.”

Ogren joins her teammates in the boys locker room when the coaches speak before and after games, as well as halftime.

“She’s just like one of us,” Moles said. “She just goes along with anything we say, just always positive. It’s really great.”

So, what began as an innocent question after soccer practice — can I kick the football? — has turned into some journey for the girl who for years lived in the shadow of her big brother.

“We are so proud of her,” Susan Ogren said. “There were things that we told her she had to do, and she did it. Talked to Santa Clara, worked out her training plan. She watched hours of football video. She didn’t have a clue. She did it on her own, and we’re really, really proud of her for that.”