Indianapolis, IN—The NCAA announced the Woman of the Year candidates for the 2022 award program and Russell Sage College softball player Taylor Dicranian (Bennington, VT/Mt. Anthony Union) was selected the college's honoree. A senior pitcher/infielder with the team, the award is the latest in a long list of career accomplishments for the business health sciences major who has a concentration in occupational therapy.
For 32 years, this program has honored the academic achievements, athletics excellence, community service and leadership of outstanding female college athletes.
Rooted in Title IX and directed by the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics, the NCAA Woman of the Year program celebrates the accomplishments of female college athletes across all three NCAA divisions.
As 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of Title IX, this year's NCAA Woman of the Year award provides an important opportunity to honor incredible women and reflect on the impact of women on intercollegiate sports. In 2022, nearly 220,000 women are competing in college sports, and the NCAA received 577 nominations for this prestigious award.
Dicranian will now vie for the Empire 8 Conference Award. The Empire 8 honoree as well as other NCAA Conferences nominations are forwarded to the NCAA Woman of the Year Selection Committee, which identifies the top 10 honorees in each of the three NCAA divisions. From those 30 honorees, the selection committee then determines the three finalists in each division for a total of nine finalists. The Committee on Women's Athletics will select the 2022 NCAA Woman of the Year from the nine finalists.
For the first time in the award's history, the award ceremony will take place during the NCAA Convention in January, giving the Top 30 honorees a chance to celebrate their achievements alongside their families, coaches, and administrators attending the 2023 NCAA Convention.
NCAA Woman of the Year Facts:
- 577 nominees from member schools
- This marks the 32nd year of the Woman of the Year Award program
- Breakdown of nominees by NCAA division:
DI: 248
DII: 127
DIII: 202
- 125 multisport student-athletes, including 78 two-sport student-athletes, 46 three-sport student-athletes and 1 four-sport student-athlete
- Average GPA of the nominee pool is 3.8
- Four pillars of the Woman of the Year award: academics, athletics, service and leadership
Dicranian, who was also a repeat Empire 8 first-team All-Conference pick as well as a 2022 National FastPitch Coaches Association (NFCA) all-region third team honoree, was also chosen as the 2022 Gator of the Year in softball for her efforts by RSC's softball coaching staff. The lefty, who represented the Gators on the E8 Sportswomen of the Year squad for the second straight year, batted .336 with 25 runs scored and 26 RBI. She topped the Empire 8 Conference with 18 doubles, which was second-most by a Gator in a single-season (Morgan Dunn – 20, 2016), and logged an 8-8 record with 12 complete games in the circle.
In her time at Sage, Dicranian has appeared in 93 games and batted .385 with 105 hits, 37 doubles, and 55 RBI's. In the circle, she appeared in 304 innings which ranks eighth best in the career record book, while she added 24 wins. She is ranked No. 3 with her 69 career appearances, having compiled a 4.47 ERA.
An accomplished student in the classroom, she has earned several selections to the Empire 8 Presidents' List as well as numerous postings on Sage's Scholar-Athlete Team and was a repeat honoree as a member of the Sage Athletic Honor Society at the department's annual athletic award banquet this past May. A Dean's List student, she is very active on campus having participated in the Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), while also serving as a softball team captain and was featured by the Empire 8 in the Fall of 2021 for participation in community services activities that includes serving as a volunteer at the Freihofer's Run for Women, helping to organize and hand out food at local food drives, working as a volunteer at local youth sports in her hometown as well as assistance with Sage's ShoeBox Program, that collects and donates school supplies to local elementary schools.