By the end of her sophomore year at Hartwick College, Anne Stanavich could feel that something was missing from her life.<\/p>\n
A Class of 2023 graduate from Amsterdam, Stanavich had enjoyed her time as a three-sport student-athlete \u2014 playing soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter, and competing with the outdoor track and field team in the spring. But at Hartwick, she chose to leave that part of her life behind, resigning to the notion that it would be impossible to continue playing sports while being enrolled in the school\u2019s nursing program.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody was talking about how hard it is, so I skipped on the sport aspect so I could focus on academics,\u201d Stanavich said. \u201cI was still running, lifting and acting like an athlete, but I just didn’t have those team-bonding moments.\u201d<\/p>\n
In December 2024, Hartwick announced that it was installing women\u2019s flag football to its list of sports offerings beginning in the 2025-26 academic year. Stanavich had never played flag football before, outside of a few powderpuff games at Amsterdam High School, but as the date of the Hawks\u2019 inaugural summer training camp moved closer, the opportunity became more and more enticing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI learned how to play flag football in under six months,\u201d said Stanavich, now a rising senior, \u201cand it\u2019s become one of the biggest blessings of my life today.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Stanavich name is legendary among Amsterdam football fans, with brothers Bryan, Brett and Dale starring for the Rugged Rams throughout the 2010s. Anne remembers watching her older siblings from the stands, but that was about the extent of her football fandom.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never understood it,\u201d she said with a laugh.<\/p>\n
When it came to learning flag football, Anne Stanavich scoured the internet for instructional videos and rule books. She wasn\u2019t the only one trying to learn on the fly, as other schools \u2014 SUNY Brockport, Elmira, SUNY Geneseo and Russell Sage \u2014 had also pledged to take part in the Empire 8 Conference\u2019s inaugural season.<\/p>\n
Of the 19 student-athletes on Hartwick\u2019s first-ever flag football team, 13 were freshmen. Stanavich also noted that many of their players weren\u2019t just newcomers to flag football, but new to athletics as a whole.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the first few days of the season, we were just going through the basics, like wearing the flags, learning how to catch a football, and learning how to pull flags,\u201d Anne Stanavich said. \u201cOur coach [Aaron Zurn] would just keep calling it \u2018our building year.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The building year kicked off with a 26-18 win over Elmira College on March 24, with Stanavich, who was named a team captain for the Hawks, scoring the program\u2019s first-ever touchdown on a four-yard fourth-down pass from Elle Kalbach.<\/p>\n
After winning its first two games, Hartwick finished the trailblazing campaign with a 4-7 record, culminating in a 47-18 loss to Brockport in the E8 Tournament semifinals. Stanavich earned Second Team E8 All-Conference honors at receiver, hauling in 18 passes for 194 yards and six touchdowns. She also tallied 56 rushing attempts totaling 379 yards and another four touchdowns, making her the team\u2019s leading scorer on the season.<\/p>\n
As a defensive back, Stanavich pulled 53 solo flags, along with five assists, an interception, and five pass breakups.<\/p>\n
\u201cAthletics is in my blood,\u201d she said. \u201cBut this was a hidden ability I didn\u2019t know I had.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite her earlier concerns about balancing academics and athletics, Stanavich said her GPA actually increased during the second semester.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, nursing isn’t easy, but I was able to manage it,\u201d she said. \u201cLooking back at it now, I tell some of my teammates that I wish I had more than one year left \u2026 [flag football] is an amazing sport for women. It’s very inclusive, and I\u2019ve made some of the best friends I’ll have forever.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m so lucky I joined,\u201d she added. \u201cThis was a building year, and I’m so happy to be part of such a historic moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike Stanavich, Colonie Class of 2024 graduate Hailey Blake did have some experience on the gridiron before starring for Russell Sage this past spring.<\/p>\n
During her senior year, Blake was a member of Colonie\u2019s first-ever girls\u2019 flag football team, a part of what was then just a 12-team league in Section 2. Russell Sage didn\u2019t announce that it, too, would be adding a women\u2019s program until February 2025, and by then, Blake was halfway through her freshman year and was a burgeoning goaltender for the Gators\u2019 women\u2019s soccer team.<\/p>\n
After conferring with some teammates, Blake filled out the interest form. From there, it \u201cbecame a waiting game,\u201d during which Blake couldn\u2019t help but doubt if balancing two sports plus her education could be done successfully.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was, like, \u2018Is this for me? Can I handle all of this?’ But then I met the girls,\u201d Blake said. \u201cI saw it as a breath of fresh air because it was something new. It was a different team. It was new experiences. It was a learning experience, so I took it as that and said, \u2018I’m going to have fun with this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Blake, who\u2019s majoring in elementary education, wasn\u2019t the only multi-sport student-athlete playing for the Gators flag football team, which certainly presented challenges when it came to getting everyone together during the offseason. However, Blake thought it did give them an edge when the games got underway.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey had the athleticism, and they had the endurance, so that really helped us,\u201d Blake said. \u201cWe were comfortable understanding and picking up concepts because how you deal with it in other sports makes you very adaptive and will take in information very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following a fall campaign in which she established a program record for goals allowed average (0.85), Blake earned the honor of first team All-conference wide receiver, as well as second team defense, in the spring.<\/p>\n
On offense, Blake finished with 59 receptions for 641 yards and five touchdowns, and was just 12 yards shy of the century mark in rushing. Defensively, she pulled 44 flags, nabbed three interceptions, and logged seven pass breakups.<\/p>\n
Despite the Gators winning only one of their eight games in the inaugural season, Blake wasn\u2019t left discouraged about what could be in 2027.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do think, overall, we had very good moments,\u201d Blake said. \u201cWe had a lot of girls who came in not knowing what the sport really was, so it was a good experience to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blake was one of four Section 2 products playing for the Gators this past spring, along with Gloversville\u2019s Allie Salvione, Mohonasen\u2019s Isabella Clute, and Niskayuna\u2019s Clara Stodolka. Meanwhile, her high school quarterback, Kendra Charland, was instead throwing passes to Stanavich at Hartwick.<\/p>\n
\u201cI definitely think it is like a little family moment,\u201d Blake said. \u201cI’ll always have that connection of home \u2026 and seeing people that you’ve played against or known in high school, it\u2019s kind of, like, \u2018Oh, you made it, and I made it, and now we’re here together, but on different sides of the field, both fighting for like the same thing and working towards the same goal.'”<\/p>\n
The Capital Region seems to be embracing the rapid rise of flag football, with 23 schools in Section 2 offering girls\u2019 flag football as a varsity sport in 2026, while Union College is set to compete in its first season next spring as a member of the ECAC.<\/p>\n
The NCAA projects to hold its first NCAA flag football championship tournament in Spring 2028, and the sport will make its Olympic debut shortly afterwards during the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
To be a part of such a movement, even at the local level, isn\u2019t something Blake or Stanavich takes for granted.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have so many different girls, so many different cultures, so many different personalities coming together on one team that wasn’t previously planned,\u201d Blake said. \u201cI think it formed a beautiful bond amongst us.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor these younger athletes and these younger girls, it’s awesome for them to look up to us and be like, \u2018They made it, so now I can make it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By the end of her sophomore year at Hartwick College, Anne Stanavich could feel that something was missing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[23,20398,9015,9014,9013,1918,5345,366,20399,9017],"class_list":["post-30965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-amsterdam","tag-amsterdam","tag-colonie","tag-high_school","tag-high-school","tag-leader_herald","tag-national","tag-regional","tag-sports","tag-spotlightnews","tag-the_recorder"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}