Mallory Hasselbeck a 'Missing Puzzle Piece' in New Chapter Out West

Boston College was in Mallory Hasselbeck’s DNA. Maybe literally. Her father, Matt Hasselbeck, was the quarterback for the Eagles from 1994-97 and went on to play in the NFL. Her mother, Sarah, was an All-American field hockey player for the Eagles and is a member of the school’s hall of fame.

Even her uncle, Tim — another future NFL quarterback — was an Eagles QB1.

Mallory Hasselbeck’s parents encouraged her and her sister, Annabelle, to chart their own paths. But if we’re being honest, it was unsurprising when Annabelle picked Boston College and Mallory followed as ILWomen’s No. 1 recruit in the Class of 2021.

Four years and multiple injuries later, Hasselbeck is preparing to rep a different uniform, trading her Boston College Eagles jersey for a Stanford Cardinal one.

Fully healthy for one of the first times in her career, Hasselbeck has a list of lofty goals for her final collegiate season. But she has no regrets about the path that took her West, including her decision to stay east and attend Boston College.

“When you go through the recruiting process the second time, you’re older and more mature, so I definitely took a lot longer to go through the process,” Hasselbeck said. “It made me realize, ‘BC was the perfect place for me for those four years.’ It was a no-brainer. I got to play with my sister for three, which was such a gift. My parents lived down the street. My grandparents could come to every game. My brother brought his high school football team. It was definitely a family affair, and probably the best four years of my life.”

Everyone says that about college to the point it sounds passé. But dig deeper into Hasselbeck’s story, and it reads more like a plot twist. Hasselbeck stepped foot on Boston College grounds as the No. 1 recruit. But she had already missed two years of lacrosse because of COVID-19 and an ACL injury sustained during hockey that forced her to miss her senior lacrosse season.

The injury bug kept biting. Hasselbeck played her sophomore year with a torn meniscus and a broken wrist.

“They’re like, ‘How are you able to walk? You shouldn’t have been playing like this,’ Hasselbeck said. “And I was like, ‘That’s called adrenaline, guys.’”

Hasselbeck got two surgeries and redshirted her junior year. Then, while playing scout toward the end of her junior year, she tore her ACL, a recovery process that forced her to miss games last year.

It regularly put Hasselbeck — a 13-time varsity letter winner in lacrosse, field hockey and ice hockey in high school, USA U17 Select Team member and high school All-American — in an unfamiliar spot: The sidelines.

“[When you’re injured], you’re posed the question of, ‘I can’t play, how can I still give? How can I still learn?’” Hasselbeck said. “[Associate head coach] Jen Kent gave me the reins. [She said], ‘OK, now you’re going to learn how to study a defense, and you’re going to learn how to study an offense.’ I would pretend to be this attacker [and think], ‘What would I do in this situation?’ So now, instead of going from player to coach, I’m going from coach to player.”

Hasselbeck also learned from some of the best players in BC history — nay, women’s lacrosse history: Jenn Medjid, Mckenna Davis, Sydney Scales, and of course, Charlotte North, in her final year as an Eagle during Hasselbeck’s freshman campaign.

“I just learned how to lead from [Charlotte] ... on the field and also off the field, making everyone feel included and bought in,” Hasselbeck said. “And [I learned] a couple of technical things like, ‘Alright, that’s your split dodge. I am going to copy and paste that.’”

The Eagles have been a program people can “copy and paste” into their brackets as locks to make it to not only the final four but the national championship game for nearly a decade. And though she redshirted in 2024, Hasselbeck has an NCAA championship ring from that year — and it’s a title she won with her sister.

But after Boston College saw its bid for an eighth-straight title-game appearance fall short in a semifinal loss to  Northwestern, Hasselbeck was hesitant to make decisions about her future. In fact, she had been reluctant to decide whether she wanted to exhaust her eligibility — and if so, where? — since the start of her true senior season.

Instead, she filed it away.

“When the season ended, it was hard,” Hasselbeck said. “I told the coaches, ‘I just need some time.’ I didn’t want to make an emotional decision because we ended up losing. I’ve learned that life can take you different ways, and you don’t really know tomorrow.”

But 2026 will mark a new day — a new era, really — for Hasselbeck. She decided to go to Stanford. And while she’s on the opposite coast from where her family lives and attended school, she was drawn to Stanford after speaking to her childhood best friend, Annabelle Frist, an All-American attacker for the Cardinal who missed last year with an injury.

Hasselbeck also had a relationship with Stanford coach Danielle Spencer from her high school recruiting cycle and has since been impressed by what the program has accomplished. Notably? The Cardinal advanced to the conference tournament semifinal in their first year in the gauntlet ACC and won their first NCAA tournament game under Spencer in May, beating Denver 10-4 in the first round.

“She’s transformed this program,” Hasselbeck said. “They have what it takes with her leading to win a national championship, and ever since I got here, my belief is totally confirmed.”

Spencer — like other college coaches — was impressed by Hasselbeck’s size and athleticism in high school, and reconnecting felt familiar. Easy even.

That said, Stanford rarely takes a transfer. Madison McPherson became Spencer’s first graduate transfer when the defender came over from Johns Hopkins in 2023.

“We don’t spend a lot of time thinking about transfers or looking at them,” Spencer said. “It’s hard to get in here, and we haven’t had many transfer out during my time here. It’s become less of a part of the process. But Mallory was someone I had known and been interested in.”

But it wasn’t the athleticism, size, craftiness or deceptiveness on offense that sold Spencer on bringing Hasselbeck out West. It was the leadership Hasselbeck developed when dealing with one personal setback after another.

“Her teammates unanimously voted her as a captain at Boston College, and that’s incredible to have your teammates see you in that way when you don’t have a role where you’re out there all 60 minutes,” Spencer said.

In only a few short weeks of fall ball, Stanford players have come to see Hasselbeck in the same way. Each week, they vote on a player who best exemplifies the program’s values. Hasselbeck has earned it twice.

“She approaches every practice, every opportunity with so much gratitude and joy,” Spencer said. “It’s contagious. I would imagine much of that is shaped by her experience with injury, setbacks and adversity.”

And is now — hopefully — on the other side with another chance to contribute on the field.

“This has been the first fall since my sophomore year that I’ve been healthy,” Hasselbeck said. “It’s been so fun just to play free during fall ball. You learn, you experiment, you build chemistry.”

And she’s building a case to be a versatile threat on a Cardinal offense that returns all five of its leading scorers from 2025, including Aliya Polisky (65G, 17A) and Ava Arceri (56G, 19A).

“She can play a lot of different roles — up top, around the crease,” Spencer said. “She can score and assist. She brings communication, too. She’s done it longer than some of our other players, and she’s taken some skilled youngsters under her wing and helped to mentor them. She’s like a missing puzzle piece.”

Spencer said that Hasselbeck has invested time into building relationships and that she sees her as a “big part” of a powerful offense.

For Hasselbeck, the move West still marks a departure. She’s calling a different state home than most of her family for the first time in 22 years (though she points out that her brother, Henry, is a quarterback at UCLA). The family stays in touch by sending daily vlogs.

Her father frequently appears proudly sporting a slightly different shade of red these days.

“Dad’s been rocking a Stanford hat ever since,” Hasselbeck said.

Hasselbeck would like to rock more national and ACC championship rings. Snagging either would make Stanford the first West Coast program to win either. Either way, Hasselbeck will call it a collegiate lacrosse career in May. And while she has her eyes on a future that hopefully includes a championship celebration, Hasselbeck’s past has her firmly grounded in the present.

She learned this lesson not from the two prestigious schools she’ll have degrees from, but from setbacks. Because in those challenges, Hasselbeck lost the seasons and playing time that often come with being the nation’s top recruit, but she gained a perspective that she can carry with her wherever life takes her next.

“I’ve been overwhelmed with so much gratitude for how my life has panned out,” Hasselbeck said. “I could probably look at it and be like, ‘Wow, you’ve had four surgeries,’ or ‘You transferred.’ But there have been so many moments where I’m like, ‘Wow, God has a plan for your life, and you just have to trust it.’ I’ve been so fortunate to see that unfolding, especially here in this last month at Stanford in so many little moments. I’m enjoying the moment and soaking it all up because this life is pretty special.’”