Lions All Stars, Including Girls Flag Football, To Be Introduced At Saturday Banquet

Coaches for the 50th Central California Lions All-Star Football game will introduce the players for the North and South teams on Saturday night during the annual banquet at Father O'Hare Hall at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Modesto.

Andrew Beam of Escalon High is leading the North team for this year's game while Frank Marques of Hilmar High is leading the South.

For the first time the top girls flag football players from Lions District 4-1A will be part of the evening. Kimball High coach David Rios will introduce players from the North team, and South coaches Nathan Ramirez and Capri Abbasi of Atwater will introduce their players.

This year's games will be played on Saturday, June 20 — girls flag football at 5 p.m., with the boys following at 7 p.m. — at Tracy High School's Wayne Schneider Stadium.

The event matches top graduated high school football players, with North team players mostly from the Stockton area and South players mostly from the Modesto area. The event was put on hold for three years during the COVID-19 pandemic, and is now in its fourth year since starting up again.

The North team leads in the overall series with a 27-19-2 record, winning last year's game 42-37 after the South won it for the previous five years in a row. North team quarterback Zak Willson of Sierra High was the game's Most Valuable Player with three touchdown passes and one touchdown run. M.J. Uili of Modesto High had a game-high 13 tackles for the South and was named Defensive MVP.

Local players on the North team this year include Tracy High defensive lineman Ruben Cornejo, Kimball High linebacker Dawson Pelech and West High lineman Alekisio Vakauta.

North coach Beam has been the head coach at Escalon High, his alma mater, since 2019, leading them to section championships with records of 14-1, 12-2, 13-3 and 12-2 from 2019 to 2023, excluding 2020 when games were limited by the COVID pandemic. Those include a Division 4-A state title in 2019. The Cougars also made playoffs in 2024 and 2025.

South coach Marques retired at the end of the 2025 season after a 23-year run as head coach at Hilmar, totaling 199 wins, four SJS titles and one CIF state title.

Rios has been a girls soccer coach at Kimball for four years and completed his second season as head coach in flag football. The Jaguars went 24-3, 10-0 Tri-City Athletic League in 2025.

The North girls flag football team includes Kimball High quarterback Emma Coronado, the Tri-City Athletic League's Most Valuable Player, and her Jaguar teammates on the Lions North team include linebacker Kameiyah DePerio and wide receiver Anaiya Garcia. Tracy High players on the North team include running back Izabella Gutierrez, the TCAL's Offensive Player of the Year, and wide receiver/defensive back Aubrie Prichard.

Ramirez and Abbasi had a team at Atwater last season that went to the SJS D2 semifinals, where they fell to Ponderosa High 13-7, with Ponderosa then losing to Atwater's league rival Merced 33-6.

The banquet guest speaker will be Stagg High graduate and author George Visger, a member of the San Francisco 49ers' first Super Bowl winning team. Visger played at Stagg High in Stockton when the Delta Kings were an undefeated state-ranked team in 1975. He also played for the University of Colorado and the New York Jets. He is now known for his advocacy for those with traumatic brain injuries and has survived several brain surgeries himself.

For the first time in many years, the Lions All-Star Football Game has a presenting sponsor in the ALLRISE Foundation, a charity funded by New York Yankees superstar Aaron Judge, a Linden High grad who had been selected to participate in the Lions game after his senior season, but declined the invitation as he was getting ready to start playing collegiate baseball at Fresno State.

This year's game will feature tickets that can be purchased through GoFan.com. Tickets are $15. Presale game tickets for $10 and T-shirts also will be available at the banquet.

Contact the Tracy Press at tpnews@tracypress.com or (209) 835-3030.