Making her point: Hansen part of gridiron history for Fighting Scots with PAT

by Barry McNamara

Monmouth, Ill. (09/25/2024) — When the Monmouth College football team scored its final touchdown in the fourth quarter of Saturday's 52-6 victory over Lawrence University, coach Chad Braun elected not to send out the Midwest Conference's reigning Special Teams Player of the Week, Cody Szelc, to tack on his seventh extra point of the day.

Instead, Braun gave a freshman a chance to do something that hadn't been done in 136 years of Fighting Scots football, and she delivered.

That's right - she.

Mylee Hansen, who earlier in the day had been a starting center back for the Fighting Scots women's soccer team against Illinois Wesleyan University, came on for the extra-point attempt and drilled it through the uprights with 6:06 remaining.

'This has got to go in'

"Coach had mentioned something about the possibility at practice, but it was kinda vague - like 'It could be happening' kind of deal," said Hansen. "But I really didn't know until about two seconds before I went in. The only people who knew were (teammate/kicker) Alec (Hesson) and the coaches. They were like, 'Mylee! Mylee! Go out there!' Everything went pretty good. I just remember thinking, 'This has got to go in.' It definitely could've been better, but it went in."

As she floated to the sideline, she received a body bump from assistant coach Nate Graham and some other congratulations.

"I was still shaking," she said. "I still had that adrenaline rush."

"I don't think she was ready for it," said Braun. "I just ran down the sideline and said, 'You're up.' She ran out there and knocked in through. It was awesome. What's cool about it is it's not a gimmick. It's not a publicity stunt. She's a legitimate kicker. Everything that she's done, she's earned."

Been there, done that

Hansen is no stranger to booting the oblong pigskin through the uprights, estimating she's done it thousands of times. She began kicking for Pekin High School's football team in the 2021 season, and between that year and the next, she made more than 100 PATs, including one that will live a long time in PHS lore.

"My junior year, we were in a tie game in the playoffs, and I made a kick to win the game," she said, noting it was not only her biggest kick, but perhaps her strongest. "That was probably the best kick of my life. I really hit it well."

To be specific, the kick provided the tie-breaking point against Normal Community in the second round of the 2022 Illinois Class 7A playoffs. The 32-31 victory kept the Dragons' unbeaten season going another week.

Now that she's in the scorebook in the college game, she can't seem to stop. The day after she made history against Lawrence, she went a perfect 10-for-10 on extra points in Monmouth's junior varsity season opener against St. Ambrose University and also had some strong kickoffs. For context, only one Scots kicker, Kyle Tuor in 2008, has ever made 10 PATs in a game at the varsity level. Coincidentally, Tuor was also a golfer and played two sports in one season for the Scots.

The origin story

In the fall of her freshman year at Pekin, Hansen, too, was on the golf team before playing soccer - a sport she's participated in all her life - for the Dragons in the spring. That's when she caught the eye of Pekin assistant football coach Zach Williams, who asked her to consider coming out for the football team her sophomore year.

"We were having a soccer practice, and I kept shanking the ball over to his field," said Hansen. "I'd had him as a teacher, and he was friends with my dad. He asked, 'Would you want to kick for the football team?' That weekend, I went out with my parents to try a few kicks, and the next week, I started going to football practice."

Her first action was in the Dragons' season opener at Rock Island, and she got off on the right foot - literally - making all three of her tries in a 21-0 victory. And the kicks kept coming, as Pekin averaged nearly 37 points per game over the next two seasons.

All the while, Hansen kept up her successful soccer career, earning elite IHSSCA All-Sectional honors as both a junior and senior as the Dragons put together back-to-back 11-win seasons. She listed playing soccer in college as one of her highlights in the sport, but she'd hoped she wasn't finished yet in football, either.

"One of the football coaches reached out to me, and then I scheduled a visit and met Coach Braun and some other coaches," said Hansen. "I liked that Monmouth was close to home. I have a twin brother who goes to Carl Sandburg (College) and my mom just came over the other night and we all had dinner together."

A political science major who plans to pursue a law degree, Hansen is already comfortable talking to the media. She was often interviewed during her days on Pekin's football team, and those requests came in again mere hours after her historic kick.

"I got a lot of texts congratulating me," said Hansen of the response, three days later. "I was on an out-of-state podcast yesterday, which I've done before, and the Peoria Journal-Star called me the night of. ... My dad geeks out about all that stuff. I have very supportive parents."

Hansen has already experienced plenty of athletic highlights, but she still has the better part of eight sports seasons as a Fighting Scot ahead of her - nearly four years of football and the same in soccer. So yes, the talented freshman with the strong right leg has made her point, but there may be many more to follow.