Harmony Lady Longhorns Win OBC Flag Football Championship with 26–20 Overtime Victory Over Celebration, Capture 6th Straight Title

By: J. Daniel Pearson

Martha “Smalls” Edwards (2021-25), was the last freshman quarterback to start for the Harmony varsity flag football team. She would go on to claim four straight OBC championships and take four straight Osceola County Player of the Year Awards in leading the Horn to four regional appearances. Longhorns coach Paul Strauch can only smile when asked he may found a freshman replacement for Edwards.

On Thursday night, nine-grader Ivy Munns completed 19 of 41 passes for 181 yards and four touchdowns – including a 10-yarder to Khloe Cook-Osani in overtime – to give Harmony a 26-20 overtime win over Celebration in the championship game of the 2026 Orange Belt Conference Tournament.

For Harmony, now 8-1, it was their sixth straight OBC Championship, 8^th in 10 years and 15^th overall. Celebration, who came into the tournament as the number two seed, fell to 8-1.

“Because the first state rankings hadn’t come out yet, they used last year’s final rankings to seed for the OBC Tournament. I will be absolutely honest, Celebration should have been the top seed. They were undefeated and easily beat East Bay, who handed us our loss this year,” Strauch said. “That is a good team over there, that just plain whipped us in the first half tonight.”

That was certainly an understatement.

While Munns struggled with two interceptions and just 20 passing yards in the first half, Celebration was busy scoring three touchdowns and taking a 20-0 first half lead. Junior quarterback Isabel Meadows threw for one touchdown and ran for two more in the half.

Meadows went four for five on her first drive, calling her own number from two yards out for the first score of the game. A 20-yard pass to Genisis Rodriguez and an 18-yarder to Isabella Mafra were the big plays of the drive. A Storm interception set up a Meadows to Nayeli Rivera 8-yard touchdown pass and Meadows would cap the first-half onslaught with a 1-yard run to make it 20-0.

Although the Longhorns would go on a long, time-consuming drive to open the third quarter, it would end with three straight incompletions inside the Storm 10 as Harmony turned the ball over on downs.

“We made a ton of mistakes in the first half and in that opening drive of the third, but give Celebration a lot of credit, they were kicking our butts,” Harmony coach Paul Strauch said. “I saw a lot of our heads hanging at halftime but our message to the players was simple, this game is not over and let’s just take it one play at a time.”

The comeback would start in earnest on the next possession. The Longhorns would return an interception to the Celebration 2 and three plays later Munns would hit Ella Husbands for a score to cut the gap to 20-6.

After forcing a punt at the end of the third quarter, Munns would hit Husbands on a 31-yard bomb to the Celebration two. One play later, Hubands caught a deflected ball for a touchdown and an Avery Jones conversion made it 20-13.

On the game’s next possession, Celebration elected to punt on a fourth and four play. Taking over on its own 17, a couple of short passes followed by a 33-yard reception by Husbands gave Harmony the ball on the Storm 14 with time running down.

Two dropped passes were followed by a Genesis Rodriguez pass defense in the end the zone – giving Harmony a fourth and goal from the 14. Celebration appeared to weather the Storm and potentially win the game when a Munn’s four down pass fell incomplete but they were called for defensive holding on the play – giving the Longhorns new life with a 4^th and goal from the seven. Munns found Cook-Osani on a crossing pattern and another conversion to Jones tied the score at 20-20 at the end of regulation.

In varsity flag, each team is given four plays to score from the 10 in overtime with the option of going for 1, 2 or 3 extra points. Celebration would get the ball first and appeared to score on its second play. but the touchdown was called for an illegal contact block against a rusher that pushed the ball back to the 11. Meadows would misfire on three straight plays and Munns would hit Cook-Osani on the Horns first play of overtime for the game-winner.

“Extremely proud of how our kids fought back tonight, but we were fortunate to escape with the win,” Strauch said. “We take the ball in the second half and fail to score. We had some more drops. We got a call on a fourth-down play that gave us another chance to score a touchdown to get within one and then we get a conversion on a tipped ball where our receiver ripped it from a defenders hand. Celebration is a terrific team, they are in our district and I know we will see them at least one more time in the playoffs.”

Score by Quarters 1^st 2^nd 3^rd 4^th OT — Final