Van Voorhis makes history as first woman non-kicker in NCAA football game

WASHINGTON (TND) — Haley Van Voorhis is making college football history.

The safety at Shenandoah University became the first woman non-kicker to appear in an NCAA football game on Saturday, according to ESPN.

At just 5-foot-6 and 145 pounds, the junior went on to beat Juniata.

Van Voorhis hails from Plains, Virginia and was a 2019 all-state honorable mention at her high school at Christchurch.

She also is a member of the track and field team for Shenandoah University and runs sprints.

Van Voorhis is another star in a long line of talented women in college football.

In 2003 at New Mexico, Katie Hnida became the first woman to score in an NCAA Division I-A football game as the place-kicker. Sarah Fuller followed seventeen years later as the first woman to score in a Power 5 football game as the kicker for Vanderbilt.

"There's definitely people out there who see the story and think, 'This girl's going to get hurt,'" Van Voorhis told EPSN in 2021. "I hear that a lot. Or, 'She's too small, doesn't weigh enough, not tall enough.' But I'm not the shortest on my team, and I'm not the lightest."

But according to her coach, she is "very determined."