Pepsi Spotlight: New Bern kicker Sara Lewis, breaking boundaries and making field goals

NEW BERN, N.C. (WITN) - Sara Lewis is the kicker for the New Bern Bears football team.

She’s the only young woman on not only the Bears squad, but the only one in the Big Carolina 6A/7A conference, and one of the few playing in ENC.

New Bern coaches asked to see Lewis’s talent, because of her success in soccer.

“She came out and just kicked,” Bears head coach Terrance Saxby sais while recalling how she joined. “And I was actually in the parking lot and I said coach, who’s that kicking the ball?”

While her first love was soccer, Lewis says she loves football too, and that the environment has been very easy to switch into.

Lewis is just one of the local influences in the area, showing young girls that sports are for everyone.

“Girls around, young girls, they’re like, oh there’s the kicker she’s a girl,” Lewis said. “And oh my gosh and it really hits my heart. Because that’s what I wanna do.”

Lewis also says she hopes to see more young women in football, and in sports.

“I think it would be really amazing to actually have a full female football league and actual tackle football,” She told WITN. “I think it would be amazing, but do it. Girls can do so much more than what they think they can.”

Lewis’s coaches commend her effort, hard work, and grit because her presence on the team doesn’t revolve around gender, but around talent.

“It’s pretty much the same, I do what I’m supposed to if not more than the guys,” Lewis laughed.

" That was really the most important thing for us is can you, if we score touchdowns can you get us points. Or if we get close enough can you get us three points and that’s the thing and as long as your consistent with kicking extra points and field goals, then we can work on anything else that we’re asking you to do," Saxby told WITN. “But she consistently makes extra points and field goals and that’s why we enjoy having her.”

Lewis also continues to play soccer, even telling WITN she had that practice at the end of football practice. She went on to say that while that can be difficult, she loves it a lot.

Lewis says that her furthest made field goal was around 42 yards, and that she continues to push her limits every day.

Coach Saxby told WITN that one of his favorite moments with Lewis, was when she played a key role in preventing a touchdown in a recent game.

You can see Lewis in action this Friday as the undefeated New Bern squad travels to face Cleveland.