EAST MEADOW, N.Y. — Sasha Hartje's student-athlete experience is one most competitors would love to have.
She has excelled in two sports at the collegiate level, the latter with the LIU women's ice hockey team after a hiatus to play tennis as an undergrad.
The journey started in 2017, as a tennis player at Emory University, in Atlanta.
Hartje played four years of tennis with the Eagles, helping lead the team to a Division III national championship in 2021.
"It definitely was a grueling sport," said Hartje, a Bloomfield Hills, Mich., native. "You are out there for three hours every day practicing. Then you have conditioning and then you have lift. It was a lot, but it was so worth it."
Hartje started playing tennis at five years old. A sport introduced to her by her mother, Nicole, who was four-time Ivy League champion at Harvard before starting her professional career.
"Something that connected my mom and I was the tennis aspect of my life," Hartje said. "It was something that we had a unique bond over. I was really lucky to have her in my corner, and I don't think that I would have lasted all of those years without her."
In 2021, Hartje wrapped up her college tennis career at Emory and graduated. That's when she decided to exercise her final years of NCAA eligibility at LIU ... in hockey.
"Sasha has an incredible tennis career," said her mother, Nicole. "She won a national title, played on great teams, and I could not be more proud of her success on the court."
Hockey is a sport she has been playing since she was three years old and one that runs in the Hartje family.
Her father Tod won an NCAA championship with Harvard, before becoming the first American to play hockey in the Soviet Union. He later returned to North America to play for NHL's Winnipeg Jets.
Sasha's siblings are also no stranger to the sport. Her older brother Jake recently completed a successful hockey career at Harvard, her sister Elle plays at Yale and her youngest brother Clay is a high school hockey player in Michigan.
"The excitement level was at an all-time high," Hartje said about returning to hockey from tennis. "I felt like I had a new birth and new path that I could start to follow. … I decided to go after my dream of becoming a college hockey player. My entire family played hockey, and I knew it was time to get back on the ice."
That dream came true during the 2021-22 season, but there was a set back. Sasha broke her leg in a game last November and missed the rest of the season. Her parents knew she would come back stronger than before — and they were right.
"Right away Sasha did not waiver, she said I am going to be back." Said Tod Hartje, when asked about Sasha's injury. "I am going to play and I am going to finish. She just started getting into a rhythm and she did not let the injury set her back."
Hartje recently started her second season at LIU. The graduate student is calling it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
The Sharks take a seven-game winning streak into Friday night's NEWHA game against Saced Heart at Northwell Health Ice Center.
"When LIU gave me the opportunity to come play and to come live out my dream, I was just beyond grateful," she said. "I just wanted a chance to play and compete. Being here at LIU has been beyond my wildest dreams. More than I could have ever asked for."
