The University of Utah's Hannah Flippen is one of a record 543 female college athletes who have been nominated for the 2017 NCAA Woman of the Year honor, the NCAA announced Wednesday.
Flippen recently completed her senior season as an infielder for the Utes and exits the program as Utah's all-time leader in runs, hits and batting average. She won back-to-back Pac-12 Softball Player of the Year honors and graduated with a 3.59 GPA in psychology.
The three-time Pac-12 All-Academic selection and two-time academic All-American earned a postgraduate scholarship and will pursue her master's degree at the school in the fall, according to Utah.
The NCAA Woman of the Year is open to student-athletes of all NCAA divisions, and the four criteria to determine finalists are academics, athletics, service and leadership.
A top 30, including 10 from each division, will be determined by the selection committee and narrowed to a finalist field of nine in September. The top 30 will be recognized and the 2017 NCAA Woman of the Year awarded during a ceremony Oct. 22 in Indianapolis.
According to the NCAA, the average GPA among the finalists for this year's award is 3.69, with 229 nominees in Division I, 117 in Division II and 197 in Division III.
In addition to her athletic and academic excellence, Flippen volunteered at the Huntsman Cancer Institute and at local elementary schools and worked with the Special Olympics, among other local service activites, according to the school.
This came one day after Flippen and former Utah defensive end Hunter Dimick earned the Pac-12 Tom Hansen Conference Medal, awarded to each Pac-12 institution's top senior male and female student-athlete. Dimick started four years for the Utes and earned All-America and first-team all-Pac-12 honors as a senior, when he ranked third nationally in sacks (14.5) and sacks per game (1.12). Dimick now is a rookie free agent with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Pac-12 Networks will feature the conference medal winner during its year-end sports report on Thursday at 8 p.m. MT.