• NCAA Woman of the Year Website
Eastern Illinois volleyball player Giovana Larregui Lopez and Morehead State golfer MacKenzie Neal have been selected as the nominees from the Ohio Valley Conference for the NCAA Woman of the Year Award.
Neal was selected as the recipient of the 2023-24 Ohio Valley Conference Steve Hamilton Sportsmanship Award. On the course she earned four All-OVC honors and become the first MSU golfer to ever earn five total All-OVC honors (which includes her All-Newcomer Award as a freshman).
In the classroom, she was a four-time Women’s Golf Coaches Association (WGA) All-American Scholar while also earning four OVC Academic Medal of Honor awards for having a perfect 4.0 GPA. She was also one of six recipients of the prestigious OVC Scholar-Athlete Award during the 2022-23 academic year.
In the community she was named the winner of Morehead State’s Laughlin-Miller Award, the highest individual honor for the year encompassing community service, sportsmanship, academic and athletic success. Neal participated in MSU’s Nine and Dine Fundraiser (which raised money for eastern Kentucky flood victims), volunteered in MSU’s Learning and Tutoring Center as a peer tutor, with the White House clinic physician shadowing program and with the Feed My Starving Children program at Eastside Baptist Church.
Larregui Lopez earned her second-straight OVC Player of the Year honor in 2023 while helping Eastern Illinois to a 28-5 overall record and 15-3 OVC mark. EIU won both the OVC regular season championship and the OVC Tournament Title, its first tournament crown since 2001.
During the season López ranked fourth in the NCAA in service aces (67), 29th in points scored (556.5) and 34th in total kills (468). Those numbers helped her earn AVCA Honorable Mention All-American honors for the second-straight season. López was named OVC Player of the Week four times during the year and was named to the OVC All-Tournament Team. She also earned third-team Academic All-American honors for her work in the classroom.
She helped guide EIU to its best start in school history (10-0) which included a win over SEC member Missouri in which she had 15 kills. She finished the season with 15 double-doubles and had six matches with 20 or more kills. López set the school single match record for kills and was third in single match service aces. Her offensive numbers for the year ranked in the EIU single-season top five all-time for service aces, kills and points.
Established in 1991, the award recognizes female student-athletes for excellence in academics, athletics, community service, and leadership throughout their college careers. The NCAA Woman of the Year program is an important opportunity to honor and reflect on the impact of women on intercollegiate sports.
Each year, NCAA member schools are encouraged to celebrate their top graduating female student-athletes by nominating them for the NCAA Woman of the Year Award. Up to two female student-athletes can be recognized from each school if at least one of them is an international student-athlete or student-athlete of color.
The Woman of the Year Selection Committee, made up of representatives from the NCAA membership, will choose the Top 30 honorees — 10 from each division — from the conference-level nominees. The Top 30 honorees will be announced in the fall. The selection committee will then determine the top three honorees in each division from the Top 30, and the nine finalists will be announced later in the fall. From those nine finalists, the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics will choose the 2024 NCAA Woman of the Year. The honorees will be celebrated at the Woman of the Year Award Presentation at the NCAA Convention in Nashville in January.
There were a record number of nominations (164) at the conference-level nominees for the 2024 Woman of the Year Award. Conferences offices could choose up to two student-athletes from their member school nominations if at least one nominee was an international student-athlete or student-athlete of color.