In the fall of 2019, not long after the final gun had sounded, the quarterback from Randolph-Macon Academy made it a point to seek out the Christchurch School safety who had sacked him once, made a half-dozen more tackles and caught a pass on offense over the previous 48 minutes. "I didn't even know you were a girl," he told Haley Van Voorhis, a junior defensive back who grew up in The Plains. "Great game." And now, two years later, there will be many more games to play for the somewhat shy, soft-spoken blonde young woman with a 5-foot6, 150-pound chiseled frame sculpted in the Christchurch weight room and her work-out area at home. "I've been playing football as long as I can remember," Van Voorhis said in a recent interview. "There's just something about it that I really love." And that love affair will continue at the next level. In early April, she accepted an offer to play on the varsity football team at Shenandoah University in Winchester. The first time she steps on the field, she'll make history as the first woman to play a position other than punter or placekicker on an NCAA Division III team.

Van Voorhis said she thought long and hard about where she wanted to go to school, including the possibility of taking a year off in a post-graduate year "to get stronger and more prepared to play," she said. "In the end, I just decided I wanted to play next year, and I'm excited about it.."

In 2018, she was the first young woman to play football at Christchurch, a Virginia boarding school located about an hour east of Richmond on the shores of the Rappahanock River. She also was the MVP on the school's women's basketball team last winter as well as a standout in women's lacrosse.

On the 2019 Christchurch football team, with a number of senior starters, she was a reserve receiver and safety and saw special team action. Sadly, because of the pandemic, she and so many other high school athletes across the country were unable to play their 2020 senior seasons.

Van Voorhis still got plenty of playing time her junior season. Her coach, Ed Homer, said that, "without a doubt," she would have been the starting slot receiver as a senior on his team. And, oh yes, one day after a preseason workout, Homer announced to his players that she was being named a captain, news accompanied by a boisterous cheer from her teammates.

"She's a bad-ass," said Homer, entering his 30th season as the school's head coach. "She's not afraid of anything."

So far, she also hasn't had any sort of serious injury, though her father, Chandler Van Voorhis, admitted "it can be nerve-wracking to watch" his daughter in action.

"Bur she's gotten so strong and she's in such great shape," he said. "She's learned how to protect herself, how to take a hit. And she can hit back, too."

It's been like that since Haley, then a fifth grader, had her first experience with the sport playing in what was supposed to be co-ed flag football. She was the only girl on her team, and not much has ever changed the longer she's been in the game.

Occasionally she hears a bit of trash talk, and there have been times she's been blindsided unnecessarily, or hit after the whistle. "Sometimes they try to blow me up because I'm a girl," she said. "Sometimes they refuse to hit me because I'm a girl. I don't mind that."

Van Voorhis first played tackle football in a Fauquier County boys league from sixth to eighth grade. She was on the jayvee football team at Kettle Run High School near Warrenton as a ninth grader and then chose Christchurch, where Homer was clearly ready for a young woman playing on his team with the big boys.

He and his son, then a student at Middlebury College, were driving along one day a few years ago and having a discussion about high school sports in the 21st century. That's when the subject of girls playing football came up, and the more Homer thought about it, the more he liked the idea.

About the same time, Van Voorhis and her parents, Chandler and Heidi (a former Washington Football Team cheerleader in the early 1990s), were starting to shop around for a high school that would meet their daughter's academic and athletic needs. It had to be a place that also was open to a girl playing football.

It was a perfect storm, and a perfect fit.

"As a coach, there are certain things you're always looking for, especially when it comes to practice," Homer said. "They have to be on time, they have to listen, work hard and check any issues they have at the door. Haley is really good at all of that. She's always early to practice and usually the last to leave. And she's working out all the time. She is so strong. If you looked at a picture of her a year ago, you probably wouldn't recognize her. She can squat 240 pounds; that's almost twice as much as her own body weight."

Homer had no qualms about putting together a highlight tape of Van Voorhis in action during her junior season, including that game against Randolph-Macon, and sending it out to several colleges already showing interest in recruiting her.

One tape went to Shenandoah defensive back coach Byron Mitchell. Then, at a college scouting combine held in Richmond this past Dec. 6, Mitchell watched Van Voorhis go through a variety of speed, strength and agility drills up close and personal. He obviously was duly impressed. Not long after that, he and head coach Scott Yoder offered her a guaranteed roster spot and told her she'd be given every opportunity to fulfill her dream of playing college football.

"We're looking for a certain skill set and she jumped out to one of our assistant coaches as a defensive back/wide receiver," said Shenandoah head coach Scott Yoder. "We showed interest in her, she visited here and we got to know Haley and her family and how serious she is about playing college football. I know there will be more stories and a lot of attention to this, but this is a very fine young athlete and we think she can play. At the end of the day, that's what it's all about."

Yoder, in his ninth season at Shenandoah, said he believes Van Voorhis will have no trouble fitting in to his program and has no doubt his players will welcome her to the team. He said he was prepared to do whatever was necessary to make her feel comfortable as a teammate and that it will "all be positive, I'm sure of that."

"The biggest thing you want to know is whether a player is committed, and will they work hard," he said. "Haley checks all the boxes. We'll make it work."

She's aiming to play Division III football this fall — at defensive back.

Brundle is expected to move to the Middleburg area with Lauren, his wife of one year, at the end of June and begin giving lessons shortly thereafter.