9 swimmers are among the 142 women nominated at the conference level for the NCAA’s Woman of the Year award.
The nomination process starts with each school selecting nominees. The conferences then look over those nominations and pare down the list, sending on their nominees to the NCAA.
This conference-nominated list of 142 will then get trimmed by the NCAA down to 30 – 10 each from Divisions I, II and III.
The 30 nominees will be recognized at an awards banquet in October, with the 2016 Woman of the Year being announced.
The original list of 517 athletes nominated by schools featured 33 swimmers and divers. You can find that list here.
The new list of 142 selected by the conferences features 9 swimmers:
- Rachael Acker, Cal
- Margaret Guo, MIT
- Amanda Lucia, Wagner
- Rebecca Matthews, Lynn
- Kara McCormack, Miami (Florida)
- Cathleen Pruden, Mount Holyoke
- Melissa Ross, Richmond
- Clare Slagel, Luther
- Haley Townsend, Kenyon
The nominees are spread through all three divisions. Acker, Lucia, McCormack and Ross compete in Division I. Matthews competes in Division II. Guo, Pruden, Slagel and Townsend are in Division III.
The NCAA will now select the top 30, then also pick 3 finalists from each division. Those top 9 then go to the Committee on Women’s Athletics, which will select the overall winner. That winner will be announced at the awards dinner on October 16.
Last year, 3 of the overall top 9 were swimmers or divers: Margo Geer in Division I, Kristin Day in Division II and Supriya Davis in Division III. Day, a diver at Clarion University, was the overall Woman of the Year.
