Kylie Ryall becomes Saint Francis’ first flag football scholarship signee

Kylie Ryall became Saint Francis’ first female flag football scholarship signee on July 7 when the 2026 graduate from St. Catharines committed to Sheridan College. The move gives the school a first in the sport and gives Niagara flag football a clear recruiting marker: a local player turned a school program into a college pathway.

Ryall’s commitment matters because it is bigger than one roster spot. Saint Francis now has a player who can point younger athletes to a real postsecondary destination, and Sheridan gets a recruit from a region where flag football is building speed fast. That is the kind of milestone that changes how families and coaches talk about the sport: not as an extra, but as something that can lead somewhere.

Sheridan’s women’s flag football team already sits inside a larger Ontario structure. The Bruins compete in the Ontario Women’s Intercollegiate Football Association, a league run by women’s flag football programs across the province that says it includes more than 500 athletes, 80-plus coaches and 14 institutions. A Football Ontario page later described the league as 500-plus athletes, 70-plus coaches and 15 institutions, showing how quickly the collegiate landscape is still expanding.

The Bruins are not operating like a startup program either. Sheridan’s schedule shows the team played in the 2026 Intercollegiate Women’s Provincials on April 3-4, another sign that Ryall is walking into a competitive environment with an established calendar and postseason track. That matters for recruits in a sport where exposure is still being built one tournament, one roster and one scholarship at a time.

The wider pathway is getting clearer beyond Ontario, too. Football Canada launched the Canadian Collegiate Flag Football Championship in 2022, with Université de Montréal winning in 2022, 2023 and 2025 and Collège Montmorency taking the title in 2024. The 2026 championship was scheduled for Regina, Saskatchewan, May 1-3, underscoring how quickly the women’s college game has grown into a national event.

The numbers around the sport back up the momentum. USA Football says women’s flag football scholarships are available at the NAIA, NCAA and NJCAA levels, and says girls ages 6-12 playing flag football rose 283 percent from 2015 through 2024, topping 144,500 participants. USA Football also says more than 267,200 girls ages 6-17 played flag football in 2024. With Olympic debut in the 2028 Summer Games now part of the sport’s push, Ryall’s signing fits a much larger shift. For Saint Francis, it is a school first. For Niagara, it is proof the pipeline is real.