Harford Community College’s practice fields will be a bit quieter this spring as the school adjusts to its first season without women’s lacrosse. Women’s flag football is a new sport to be offered by the college, but won’t begin until next year.
In July, the National Junior College Athletic Association announced it would no longer sponsor women’s lacrosse, leading HCC to announce the cancellation of its own team a month later. Since then, the school has used a $10,000 NJCAA grant to establish a women’s flag football program and appointed a head coach. A player interest meeting was held last week.
The last time the community college discontinued a team was in 2015, when golf was suspended.
“It wasn’t a decision that we wanted to make or a direction that we wanted to go, but the NJCAA made that decision for us,” athletic director Ed Liesch said, citing several factors that led to the team’s cancellation.
Liesch noted that the women’s lacrosse team had been a major success leading up to the pandemic. In May 2019, the team won its first NJCAA Division I National Championship and finished with a 14-1 record — the best in program history. The next year, COVID-19 pandemic restrictions went into place, and “that was, I guess, the start of the decline,” he said.
After the NJCAA’s cancellation of the entire spring sports season in 2020, Liesch noted there was a drop in participation at community colleges nationwide in the years that followed, even at HCC when the team won back-to-back championships in 2021 and 2022.
Eventually, he was informed by the NJCAA that women’s lacrosse had been “put on warning” as more schools dropped their programs. In 2023, the league’s national championships were officially referred to as “invitationals” due to the lack of participation, and last year, only four schools competed.
Liesch also pointed to the growing challenge of recruiting against NCAA Division II and III schools. He had aimed to attract more local talent by securing a bid to host the NJCAA Women’s Invitational through 2028, but those plans were scrapped once the NJCAA made its announcement over the summer.
“It’s never easy to discontinue a sport, especially when as an association we strive to provide opportunities at the two-year level across the board,” Christopher Parker, NJCAA president and CEO wrote in a statement in July. “However, we haven’t seen a great deal of participation in this particular sport, and as a result, did what we think is best. Women’s lacrosse will continue to grow at the collegiate level, and one day we hope to be able to add it back as we’ve done with other sports in the past.”
Head coach Addie Kalama, a 2019 graduate of Bel Air High School, expressed disappointment about the decision but acknowledged the NJCAA’s reasoning in a statement: “I can understand how it wasn’t feasible to continue sponsoring the sport with a limited number of programs participating,” she said. “During my short time here, I have grown to love this community and was amazed every day by the accomplishments of my players on and off the field.”
Kalama became the team’s head coach in October 2023.
Liesch said Wednesday that many lacrosse players also participated in other sports and have shifted their full focus to those. He added that many were in their final year of eligibility and had no interest in continuing at a higher level.
“Women’s lacrosse just needed more attention and care from faculty and coaching nationwide,” said freshman midfielder Addy Dean, who was unable to play her final year of what she considered her favorite sport. “I’m very worried for the future of NJCAA sports in general.”
In its August announcement, Harford Community College restated its plan to introduce women’s flag football in 2026 and noted that further research was under way to explore Esports, or competitive video gaming, in order to “stay current with NJCAA trends.” Liesch said other options he considered were women’s wrestling and cheerleading.
“Based on my research, women’s flag football was the best opportunity to offer more opportunities for female athletes,” he said. “It has exploded across the globe.”
In May, before the cancellation of women’s lacrosse, the college announced it had received a $10,000 grant from the NJCAA “to establish recruiting, hire coaches, and begin the process of building a team” for flag football in the 2026 season, according to a news release. Liesch noted that several Maryland school districts — including Baltimore City, as well as Frederick, Howard and Montgomery counties — have already introduced high school women’s flag football, and HCC has begun contacting coaches for recruitment opportunities.
Earlier this month Harford announced André Smalls as the team’s first head coach. Smalls has more than 25 years of experience playing and coaching football at Sparrows Point High School, Concordia Preparatory School and Harford Technical High School, according to a news release. At Sparrows Point, he led the junior varsity football team to its first-ever conference championship in 2021.
Liesch said Harford Community College has partnered with the Baltimore Ravens, to help organize tournaments and promote awareness of the flag football team.
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