The Southeast Missouri State flag football team, SEMO East Squad, took home the state title on Nov. 7 when it won the state tournament hosted by Missouri S&T.

The tournament consisted of various universities in Missouri and one from Arkansas. It included club teams from Missouri State, Central Missouri, Central Methodist, Missouri S&T, two teams from the University of Missouri and Arkansas Tech.

SEMO East Squad opened up by winning both games in pool play, defeating Missouri State 35-27 and then Missouri S&T 54-13.

"We didn't really know what to expect with the different level schools," Aaron Vasquez, the team captain of SEMO East Squad, said. "We didn't know how it was going to go. It was a different style of play, a few different rules we had to get adjusted to. So we struggled a bit in the beginning... to figure out some of the new rules. [Missouri State was] a really good team. They were definitely new competition for us. But we just found a way to always be one step ahead the whole game."

SEMO East Squad entered the playoff bracket of the tournament with the No. 1 seed and received a first-round bye.

In the team's first game, it played one of the University of Missouri teams in the semifinals and won 28-14.

SEMO East Squad then played the second University of Missouri team in the championship and won 27-13.

"From the beginning we just kind of had a feeling that we were going to win," Vasquez said about the championship game. "We were doing well and working well together, and we came out and never trailed in that game. We got an interception on their first drive and then took it down the field and scored, and from then on we stayed at least two touchdowns ahead after that."

The team is led by Vasquez, who is a communication studies major at Southeast.

Vasquez is also a resident assistant on the second floor of Towers East and decided to try and put a flag football team together consisting of residents on his floor.

"I wanted it to be just the guys on the floor," Vasquez said. "Whether we were good or bad, I wanted it just to be the guys on the floor. We wanted to just come together and build our relationships together and just have fun regardless if we were good or not. So we started the team with no idea of how good we were going to be. It worked out pretty well."

The team had never met before the school year started. The ultimate goal for the team from Towers East was to have fun.

"If we won a lot of games, awesome, if we didn't, awesome at the same time," Vasquez said. "A couple of people had GoPros, so we got the GoPros out. We brought an iPad out and videotaped the games. We made highlight reels and made a website and kept track of stats and updates... We really just made the team to have a whole bunch of fun and it was just really cool to see the way that it has played out and how much success we've had along the way."

The team won all six of its intramural games this fall, including its intramural championship.

The team then won the All-University Super Bowl against Pi Kappa Alpha, shutting them out 25-0. The state championship gave the SEMO East Squad a record of 11-0.

During those games, the team averaged 34.6 points per game while only allowing an average of 13.8 points per game.

SEMO East Squad moved on to compete in the regional tournament on Dec. 4 and 5 at the University of Southern Mississippi.

This tournament consisted of club teams from Mississippi State, Southern Louisiana University, Florida State, Florida, Ole Miss, Louisiana State and Arkansas.

SEMO East Squad was eliminated in the first round of the regional bracket by Mississippi State 19-13.