Sowers Nominated for NCAA Woman of the Year Award

Webster University's Meredith Sowers (Rolla, Mo./Rolla) has been named a nominee for the prestigious 2020 NCAA Woman of the Year Award, the NCAA announced on Tuesday afternoon.
 
The NCAA Woman of the Year program honors the academic achievements, athletics excellence, community service, and leadership of graduating female college athletes from all three divisions. To be eligible, nominees must have competed and earned a varsity letter in an NCAA-sponsored sport and must have completed eligibility in her primary sport.
 
This is the 30th year of the NCAA Woman of the Year Award program, which was established in 1991. Sowers is one of record 605 nominees nationally and one of 220 nominees from NCAA Division III. In addition, Sowers is one of 128 multi-sport athletes that have been nominated across all three NCAA divisions for this year's NCAA Woman of the Year Award.
 
Eligible female student-athletes are nominated by their member school. Each conference office then reviews the nominations from its member schools and submits its conference nominee to the NCAA. The NCAA Woman of the Year selection committee selects the Top 30 - 10 from each division and then three finalists from each division in September. The Committee on Women's Athletics selects the winner from those nine overall finalists, which will be announced in the fall.
 
Sowers, who was the only female student-athletes from the St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference nominated for the award, is a member of Webster's women's cross country and indoor and outdoor track and field teams. In her four years at Webster, she earned First-Team All-SLIAC honors in cross country the past three years and was a 20-time All-SLIAC honoree in both indoor and outdoor track and field, including being a 12-time SLIAC champion in multiple events. In 2019, she was named the SLIAC Outdoor Track Athlete of the Year after taking home a league-record six gold medals at the SLIAC Track Championships and was the 2017 SLIAC Outdoor Track Newcomer of the Year and during the 2020 indoor track season, she was the SLIAC champion in the 800 meters, 4-x-400 meter relay and the pole vault and was an All-SLIAC performer in those three events, along with the 60-meter hurdles.
 
"Throughout her four years, Meredith has established herself as one of our best cross country and track and field athletes of all time," Webster University head cross country coach Dan Graber said. "Along with achieving at a very high level in track and field in a wide range of events from the hurdles and pole vault to the 800 meters, she has been All-Conference three times in cross country. Her range as an athlete is something we haven't seen before in our program and she is one of the toughest athletes I've seen – always insisting on pushing herself to the limits in training and competition to get the very best out of herself."
 
The 2020 Webster graduate currently holds eight track records, including six indoor track records as she holds indoor school records in the 600 meters, 800 meters, 1,000 meters, pole vault, 4-x-400 meter relay, and the sprint medley relay and holds the outdoor school record in the pole vault and 4-x-400 meter relay. During the 2019 season, ranked 35th nationally in Division III in the 400-meter hurdles and narrowly missed qualifying for the NCAA Outdoor National Championships. In addition, is a three-time SLIAC Track Athlete of the Week and was named to SLIAC All-Sportsmanship Team in cross country in both 2017 and 2018 and has been a three-time member of the SLIAC Fall All-Academic Team, was named to the SLIAC Winter All-Academic Team this year and is a three-time selection to the SLIAC Spring All-Academic Team.
 
Among Sowers' other honors include earning the Webster Athletics Chancellor's Award for the 2019-20 school year as she carried a 3.76 cumulative GPA in Criminology and will be entering the St. Louis Police Academy this fall and was active in Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) and was also a member of the Webster University Women's Chorus. Additionally, she has sung the national anthem at several home sporting events during her time at Webster.
 
The 2020 NCAA Woman of the Year will be announced later this fall by the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics.

STORY COURTESY OF WEBSTER UNIVERSITY SPORTS INFORMATION