S.D. girl in Punt, Pass and Kick finals

Samatha Ehlers of Elk Point wants to play tackle football when she starts fifth grade next year. And why not? She’s already competing on an NFL stage.

Ehlers, 9, is in the national finals Saturday of Punt, Pass and Kick.

“I’m nervous, but I’m just excited that I made it this far,” she said by phone Thursday afternoon after practice with her dad, Brandon, at an indoor facility in Sioux City, Iowa.

Samantha will be on national television regardless of whether she wins from her group of four girls in the 8- and 9-year-old division. And thanks to the purple jerseys worn by Samantha and Alex Folz of Spring Grove, Minn., in the boys 14-15 division, the Minnesota Vikings will be represented on the field in a divisional playoff game. It’s the only way that’s happened the past five years.

All competitors are aligned with an NFL team, based on geography.

“She’s a pretty big Vikings fan now,” said her dad, Brandon Ehlers, who grew up a Cornhuskers fan in northeastern Nebraska without strong allegiance to an NFL team.

Each competitor will be shown at halftime of the Seattle Seahawks-Carolina Panthers game, which starts at 7:15 p.m. Saturday on KTTW. Winners will be shown between the third and fourth quarters.

“My classmates have been proud of it since I went to Minneapolis,” said Samantha, who advanced to the finals through regional competition there. Before that, she won sectional competition in southeastern South Dakota and her division in state competition.

Each of the 40 finalists in various divisions, boys and girls, are judged by distance and accuracy with a pass, a punt and a place-kick. They get two chances in each category in Saturday morning’s finals.

Punting is Samantha’s strength, but that wasn’t the case when she started competing four years ago as a 6-year-old. The problem wasn’t distance, however.

“It’s always been my best,” Samantha said.

She could boot the ball far, but not always accurately, her dad said.

“We knew punting would really make her or break her in Minneapolis,” Brandon Ehlers said. “We’ve worked on her accuracy. I told her, ‘Stop trying to kill it.’ Once she did that, she started kicking it straight.”

Samantha would throw the ball with her dad in the backyard as a younger girl. She always excelled in sports, she said, so she was eager to try Punt, Pass and Kick. The NFL competition for kids is in its 53rd year.

Samantha advanced to the regional competition this year for the first time in four tries.

“We didn’t know if there were three other girls who would blow her out of the water and make her look like a kindergartner,” her dad said.

No problem. On the contrary, Brandon Ehlers said Samantha had the longest punt in the nation for her age group among girls — 76 feet, 10 inches, a little more than 25 yards. And her accuracy was spot on, her dad said.

Now, Samantha worries about her place-kicking.

“Kicking hurts my toe because I can’t get under it,” she said, while acknowledging that she doesn’t want to get under the ball too much and pop it up.

Her dad worries about passing.

“The little girl competing in the Chiefs uniform (Macy Richardson of Tecumseh, Neb.) can throw it a lot farther.”

Again, however, accuracy will be just as important. And Samantha won’t have many opportunities to show what she can do.

She said she’s not feeling pressure. No scholarships or money hinge on getting first place. Win or lose, she takes her first airplane ride today, to Seattle, will get to do some sight-seeing and become a football rock star for a day.

She’ll also have her moment, however brief, on national TV.