Haylie McCleney Named Top 30 Finalist for NCAA Woman of the Year
9/7/2016 1:28:00 PM | Softball
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – Former Alabama softball player Haylie McCleney has been selected as one of 30 finalists for the 2016 NCAA Woman of the Year Award, the NCAA announced Wednesday.
The top-30 honorees consists of the top 10 within Divisions I, II and III. From those 30 candidates, the selection committee will determine the top three in each division. From those nine finalists, the Committee on Women's Athletics will then select the 2016 NCAA Woman of the Year and the winner will be announced at a ceremony on Sunday, October 16 in Indianapolis.
The NCAA Woman of the Year award honors graduating female student-athletes who have distinguished themselves throughout their collegiate careers in the areas of academic achievement, athletics excellence, service and leadership. This year, 515 student-athletes were nominated, the most ever in the history of the Woman of the Year program. This marks the 26th year of the Woman of the Year Award program, which was established in 1991.
"It is so awesome to see good things happen to good people, and Haylie certainly is one of the best we have had in our program," Alabama head softball coach Patrick Murphy said. "This reflects not only on her but all of her teammates while student-athletes at Alabama. She is very deserving of this recognition by the NCAA."
Earlier this season, McCleney was selected as one of two candidates from the Southeastern Conference and that list of nominees was narrowed to the final 30 released today. This is the fifth time in the last seven years that an Alabama student-athlete was the SEC's NCAA Woman of the Year nominee and the first for an Alabama softball player since Brittany Rogers in 2010. Other Alabama nominees include gymnasts Kim Jacob (2015) and Ashley Priess (2013) and golfer Brooke Pancake (2012). Jacob and Priess were both top-30 honorees while Rogers and Pancake made the cut as top-nine finalists.
McCleney is Alabama's sixth four-time All-American, earning First Team honors in three of her four seasons. She is a three-time First Team Academic All-American and a two-time Academic All-American of the Year selection, just the third two-time winner since the yearly award was introduced in 1988. McCleney and former teammate Kayla Braud (2010-13) are the only players in program history to earn First Team honors as an All-American and Academic All-American in the same season. She was named the 2016 H. Boyd McWhorter SEC Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year and was the SEC's Softball Scholar-Athlete of the Year last year. In 2016, McCleney graduated with a 4.0 cumulative grade point average in exercise science and won the Senior CLASS Award, becoming the third Alabama softball student-athlete to do so.
For the latest information on Alabama Softball, follow the team on Twitter (@AlabamaSB) and Instagram (BamaSB) or like us on Facebook at Alabama Softball.
