INDIANAPOLIS — Two softball players remain after the NCAA Woman of the Year selection committee cut its list to this year’s Top 30 honorees. Delaney Hiegert, an outfielder at Division II Newman University, and Vanessa Shippy, a utility player for Division I Oklahoma State, represented softball on the list.

Hiegert,  the 2017-18 Heartland Conference Woman of the Year, earned a 4.00 cumulative grade point average during her time at Newman, graduating summa cum laude as a communication major, with minors in journalism and criminal justice. She was Google Cloud Academic All-America Softball Team is currently a trial tech with the Sedgwick County (Kan.) District Attorney’s office.

Shippy, meanwhile, earned a 3.895 gradepoint average and was tabbed as the Big 12 Softball Scholar-Athlete of the Year for a second consecutive season, in addition to being a three-time NFCA AllAmerican, a two-time Big 12 Player of the Year, and a top 10 finalist for both the USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year and Senior CLASS awards this past spring. She graduated from Oklahoma State in May with degrees in marketing and finance, as well as a minor in accounting, and is currently a player for Scrap Yard Fastpitch and an assistant coach at Syracuse University.

Selected from a record 581 school nominees — a group that was narrowed to 154 nominees by conference offices — the Top 30 includes 10 from each of the three NCAA divisions. All have demonstrated excellence in academics, athletics, community service and leadership. The honorees competed in 13 sports and studied a broad range of academic majors, including finance, biochemistry, microbiology, kinesiology, nursing and communication.

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“These 30 women have demonstrated outstanding commitment to excelling in the classroom and in their sports while also serving their peers and communities,” said Sherika Montgomery, chair of the Woman of the Year selection committee and associate commissioner for governance and compliance at The Summit League. “They represent the best and brightest of women competing in college and sports, and we’re thrilled to celebrate them.”

The selection committee will announce the nine finalists, including three women from each NCAA division, in early October. The Top 30 will be celebrated and the Woman of the Year will be named Oct. 28 at a ceremony in Indianapolis.

— Courtesy of NCAA