Three Indiana girls flag players earn Toyota scholarships at NFL FLAG championships

Three Indiana high school girls flag players earned NFL and Toyota scholarships Thursday at the NFL FLAG Championships College Showcase in Westfield, putting the sport’s off-field pipeline on display as more than 350 girls’ and boys’ teams gathered at Grand Park Sports Campus. The recipients were Andrea Loza of New Prairie High School, Greta Earnest of Ben Davis High School and Aniyah Nevers of Beech Grove High School.

The awards landed inside the third annual NFL FLAG Championships Presented by Toyota, with the showcase giving the scholarship presentation a recruiting edge as well as a ceremonial one. NFL FLAG said the tournament was hosted by the NFL, ESPN and RCX Sports, and the Colts used the moment to frame the scholarships as part of the wider rise of girls flag in Indiana.

That rise has been fast. The Colts said fall 2025 was the first season of girls flag as an emerging sport in Indiana, with 78 teams competing across the state. By July 26, the organization said the number had climbed to 108 teams, moving girls flag into eligibility to become an IHSAA-sanctioned sport. The Colts have backed that push with a $1 million Road to 100 initiative aimed at building girls high school flag football and reaching 100 teams, a milestone that now looks surpassed.

For Loza, Earnest and Nevers, the scholarships tied a national championship setting to individual school programs that are still new to many Indiana campuses. Ben Davis and Beech Grove sit inside the Indianapolis-area growth corridor the Colts have spent years promoting, while New Prairie extends the story beyond the metro core and into another part of the state’s expanding flag map.

The practical impact matters as much as the symbolism. The College Showcase turned the championships into a place where players could be seen by coaches and evaluators while also receiving financial recognition for the same sport that built their résumé. In a field where girls flag is still fighting for stable footing at the high school level, the scholarship stage made clear that the sport is no longer just about Saturday results. It is now opening a college lane, one player and one school at a time.