INDIANAPOLIS – Two Sun Belt student-athletes have been named as the conference nominees for the NCAA Woman of the Year Award as Louisiana’s Haley Hayden and South Alabama’s Kaitlyn Beans are among the 58 Division I conference nominees.  The announcement was made on Tuesday.
 
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, a nominee must have competed and earned a varsity letter in an NCAA-sponsored sport, must have completed eligibility in her primary sport, and must have earned her undergraduate degree by Summer 2017.
 
Louisiana’s Hayden graduated in May with a bachelor's degree in exercise science and has been accepted to Palmer (Fla.) College's chiropractor school. She was a four-time All-Sun Belt Conference and four-time NFCA All-Central Region choice, three-time CoSIDA Academic All-District recipient and first team member on the 2017 CoSIDA Academic All-America Division I softball team.
 
Hayden produced at least 40 runs, hits and RBI all four years and her career totals exceeded the 200-mark in each category. This season she became the Ragin' Cajuns all-time runs scored leader, scoring the record-breaking 244th career run on April 30. In her final campaign wearing a Cajuns uniform, Hayden posted a career-best .382 average and eclipsed 50 RBI (career-high 57) and double digit home runs (12) for the first time since sophomore season.
 
Beans, a star jumper for the South Alabama indoor and outdoor track and field teams, recently completed her degree in Exercise Science.  Beans’ list of accolades is extensive and includes being named the 2017 Sun Belt Conference Women's Indoor Track and Field Most Outstanding Field Athlete of the Year and the 2017 South Alabama Female Student-Athlete of the Year.
 
On the national stage, Beans was a three time NCAA All-American, a two time U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association All-Academic Award winner and a first-team CoSIDA Academic All-District honoree. 
 
Beans won a total of seven Sun Belt Championship events and was named All-Sun Belt on 12 occasions.  She was named to the South Alabama Dean’s List five times and was a member of the Student Athletic Advisory Committee.
 
Eligible female student-athletes for the NCAA Woman of the Year Award are nominated by their member school. Each conference office then reviews the nominations from its core member schools (and sponsored sports) and submits its conference nominees to the NCAA. All nominees that compete in a sport that is not sponsored by their core conference, associate conference nominees and independent nominees will be sent to a separate pool to be considered by a committee. The NCAA Woman of the Year selection committee selects the Top 30 – 10 from each division and then three finalists from each division. The Committee on Women’s Athletics selects the winner from the Top 9.
 
All 30 Woman of the Year honorees will be recognized, and the 2017 Woman of the Year announced, at an awards dinner at the JW Marriott Indianapolis on Sunday, Oct. 22, 2017.