Swimmer is SUNYAC’s Pick for NCAA Honors

06/21/2013 

SUNY Cortland women's swimmer Jessica Evans of Hamburg, N.Y., is one of 455 student-athletes, including only 151 from Division III schools, to be nominated for the 2013 NCAA Woman of the Year award.

Evans was selected to represent the State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC). She is the conference's lone nominee.

The 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.

Every year, the NCAA encourages each member college and university to honor its top one or two graduating female student-athletes by submitting their names for consideration for the Woman of the Year award. Each conference then selects one or two women from the nominees to represent the conference. Those names are then sent to the Woman of the Year selection committee, which chooses the top 10 honorees in each division.

From among those 30 candidates, the selection committee determines the top three in each division and announces the top nine finalists in September. The NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics will then vote from among the finalists to determine the 2013 NCAA Woman of the Year.

The top 30 honorees will be honored, and the 2013 NCAA Woman of the Year winner will be announced, at the annual ceremony in Indianapolis on Oct. 20.

Evans is a physical education major who entered the spring with a 3.89 cumulative GPA. This past winter she earned second-team All-SUNYAC honors with a runner-up finish in the 100-yard butterfly at the SUNYAC Women's Swimming and Diving Championships. Evans also swam on a 200-yard freestyle relay team that won the SUNYAC title and earned honorable mention All-America honors with a 12th-place finish at the NCAA Division III Championships.

Evans served as co-president of Cortland's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) and represented student-athletes on the Cortland Intercollegiate Athletic Board. She helped spearhead Cortland's National Student-Athlete Day Event in early April and helped organize the Bridges for Kids Toy Collection program for the local YWCA that Cortland Athletics held last fall. In addition, she represented Cortland at the SUNYAC SAAC Conference and initiated Cortland's partnership with the Syracuse Chapter of the Special Olympics, and was involved with Leaf Raking Day and Thanksgiving Food Drive projects last year.