This Krop 5-sport star has her sights set on winning 5 district titles this school year
Kirra Magana has a 4.5 grade-point average, and, in her spare time, she plays sports — five of them.
That’s right, Magana, a 17-year-old senior who plans on majoring in Naval Architecture and Maritime Engineering in college, plays five sports: bowling in the fall; soccer and basketball in the winter; and flag football and softball in the spring.
“Not only does she compete in all these sports, but she’s also an impact player,” Krop flag football coach Ray Thompson said. “I’ve seen her run over from a soccer match, take her cleats off in the gym and go play basketball like it was nothing. She can turn a game around.”
To Thompson’s point, Magana has made first-team All-Dade in flag football and bowling, second-team All-Dade in softball and honorable mention All-Dade in soccer.
So, what’s her favorite sport?
“Flag football,” said Magana, a 5-4, 135-pounder, “and soccer, too.”
Asked to pick just one, Magana said: “Ahhh, that’s tough.”
Currently for Magana, it’s softball season, where she is a shortstop, and football season, where she’s a wide receiver/safety.
She has already won three district titles this school year — bowling, basketball and soccer — and would love to make it 5 for 5 in a couple of months.
As for flag football, Krop has won three straight district titles, going 10-2 last year. The Lightning lost 19-6 to Cooper City in the 2019 regional semifinals.
Magana, a Miami native who has a Dutch mother and an El Salvadoran father, had a great 2019 season in football, catching 30 passes for 15 touchdowns. She also intercepted three passes.
She has made a remarkable recovery from an ACL knee injury suffered while playing soccer in November of her sophomore year.
“She’s been playing sports since she was six years old,” her mother, Yolanda Magana, said. “Even when she was injured, she would still go to the games to support her teams. She doesn’t watch TV.”
Magana is undecided on college, but she may end up at an NCAA Division III school, primarily for academics.
“I love math,” Magana said. “I want to do something in engineering, and, living in Miami with the ocean right here, I’d like to one day build ships for the Navy.”
In the meantime, she is joined on the Krop team by three other standouts: junior quarterback/linebacker Lindsey Weingard, senior receiver/linebacker Kamryn Walker and senior receiver/safety Brianna Knowles. All three of those girls also play basketball, and Weingard also bowls.
But Thompson, who has been coaching various sports at Krop for 20 years, said he has never seen a five-sport athlete.
“I knew she was special her freshman year,” Thompson said. “We were leading Hialeah, 7-6, in the district final. Hialeah was driving, but Kirra picked off a pass and ran it all the way back to the one-yard line. That was the first district title in the program’s history.”
Krop lost 12-6 to Miami High in a recent exhibition game. That’s significant because Miami High went the furthest of any Dade or Broward Class 2A team last season, reaching the state semifinals. Cooper City and Western lost in the regional finals, and Krop, Ferguson and Coral Springs lost in the regional quarterfinals.
In 1A, Dillard beat Edison 6-0 in the regional quarterfinals before losing 41-0 in the state final. Booker T. Washington and Monsignor Pace were the other Dade/Broward playoff teams in 1A.
A team on the rise is Southridge, led by junior quarterback Kirsten Rolle. She had 1,784 all-purpose yards last year as Southridge went 10-2. She passed for 17 touchdowns and ran for 13 scores.
FLAG FOOTBALL
KEY DATES
District tournaments: April 20-25
Regional semifinals: April 29
Regional finals: May 4
State championships: May 8-9 at Jacksonville Mandarin High School
2019 STATE CHAMPS
Class 2A: Alonso
Class 1A: Robinson