USA Football names women’s flag football roster for world championships

USA Football locked in its women’s flag football picture with 12 athletes on the main roster and six alternates for the run to the 2026 IFAF World Championships in Düsseldorf. The group blends proven national-team producers with first-timers, a clear sign that selectors wanted both recall and upside for a tournament that arrives with Olympic stakes hanging over every rep.

Head coach Saaid Mortazavi will lead the team, with Mary Kate Beach and Matthew Hernandez as assistants. The roster was finalized after the U.S. women finished their third training camp at the Chula Vista Elite Athlete Training Center and then faced Canada in Los Angeles in a Rivalry Series exhibition that served as the last evaluation window before cuts were made.

The most established name on the list is Ashlea Klam, who returns for a fourth national team appearance. Her USA Football bio ties together nearly every marker selectors seem to value right now: championship experience, leadership and continuity. Klam was a co-captain on the 17U U.S. Girls’ National Team in 2022, then won gold with the women’s national team in 2023 and 2024. She is also listed as a scholarship student-athlete at Keiser University, with a move to Cal Poly SLO adding another layer of college pedigree to her resume.

Akemi Higa brings the other end of the spectrum. She is one of the newest additions and is set to begin her college career at Nevada State University, making her inclusion a snapshot of the pipeline USA Football is trying to build before the sport’s Olympic debut in Los Angeles in 2028. That mix of a veteran like Klam and a newcomer like Higa tells the story of this roster better than any broad talking point: experience matters, but so does identifying players who can grow into the next cycle.

Brooklin Hill, Deliah Autry-Jones, Izzy Geraci, Kendra Meredith, Kennedy Foster, Laneah Bryan and Loryn Goodwin complete the core group, widening the roster beyond a single feeder system. The spread of names reflects how women’s flag football is drawing talent from basketball and other backgrounds as well as from established flag pipelines, while college-based development is becoming more formal.

USA Football says women’s flag football is already a scholarship sport at the NAIA level, and the NCAA has added it to its Emerging Sports for Women program. That matters because the U.S. is not just picking a team for August 13-16 in Düsseldorf. It is staking out the next layer of the pipeline for a championship field that IFAF says will include 19 nations from five continents, with the road to LA28 now moving through every camp, every exhibition and every roster decision.