Chambers gets kick out punting, passing her way to team championship in dome

~ A Chaffee teen finished first among 14- and 15-year-old girls in the Punt, Pass and Kick event in St. Louis.

ST. LOUIS -- Nikki Chambers wasn't too confident about her kicking.

That could have presented a problem if the St. Louis Rams Team Championship in Sunday's Punt, Pass and Kick competition went down to the wire.

But Chambers, a 15-year-old Notre Dame sophomore from Chaffee, took care of business in the punting and passing on her way to winning the 14- and 15-year-old girls division championship at the Edward Jones Dome in downtown St. Louis.

The competition is sponsored by the NFL and Pepsi.

Nikki Chambers of Chaffee, the first-place finisher in the 14- and 15-year-old girls division of Sunday's St. Louis Rams Team Championship in Punt, Pass and Kick, threw during the halftime exhibition at the Edward Jones Dome.

Chambers, a local winner at Chaffee and a sectional winner at Cape Girardeau, competed against four other sectional champions Sunday for the Rams team title.

Her winning mark of 264 feet, 8 inches will be placed in a pool with the 31 other champions of NFL team competitions. The top four scores will be chosen for a national competition in January at the site of an NFL playoff game.

Also competing Sunday was Sydney Rapp, who finished fifth in the 10- and 11-year-old girls division. Rapp, from Jackson, had a total score of 161-6, while Tyra Buss posted a mark of 236-11 to win the division.

Chambers, who had the second-best sectional score of the qualifiers in her division, outdistanced her nearest competitor by a total of 19 feet Sunday.

"I was really surprised," Chambers said after her name was announced as the winner. "I had no idea."

Competitors were split into two lines, which Chambers said helped alleviate nerves, but also made it difficult to keep an eye on all of the competitors.

She distanced herself from runner-up Jil Rackers with a punt of 103 feet, 11 inches and a pass of 86-7. The distances of all the events are added together with subtractions for the margin off a tape-measure line used for accuracy.

Rackers had a punt of 88-2 and a throw of 68-8.

She outkicked Chambers 90-11 to 74-2, but that only cut the margin roughly in half.

No other competitor in the division surpassed a total of 200 feet.

"I'm really bad at kicking but my punting was strong today," Chambers said. "I guess I have more hand-eye coordination that comes into play more for punting than kicking.

"I'm so used to kicking soccer style, so to switch to football is tough," added Chambers, who plans to try out for soccer at Notre Dame and played for the junior varsity softball team in the fall. "I practiced all day yesterday, but I probably should've practiced more than I did."

She had improved her score more than 40 feet from the sectional at Cape Girardeau, she said.

"You don't have to worry about the wind," Chambers said about the dome. "With two lines going, not all the focus is on you, so I wasn't as nervous, but I was still nervous."

Chambers had several relatives in attendance Sunday morning to cheer her on. "My mom wanted me to enter it," said Chambers, whose father previously ran the event in Chaffee which is now coordinated by one of her former basketball coaches. "My dad was so excited about it because he likes football."

Based on past years' results listed on the NFL Web site, Chambers' score normally would fall in about the middle of the pack among the team champions in her division. But among the 12 scores posted on the NFL's youth football Web site as of Sunday evening, only two scores posted were better.

Chambers said anything beyond taking the first-place plaque from the Rams event would be a bonus.

"I'm still just excited about this," she said.