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Olivia Price from softball and Akiya Kollore from track & field have been selected as Eastern Illinois nominees for the NCAA Woman of the Year Award. Both student-athletes will now be among the candidates that the Ohio Valley Conference will look at for its selection as conference wide representatives for the national award.
 
Price was the 2022-23 Ohio Valley Conference Female Athlete of the Year after earning OVC Pitcher of the Year honors during the 2023 softball season.  She helped lead the Panthers to their first OVC Tournament title earning OVC Tournament MVP honors.   EIU made its first NCAA Tournament appearance at the Division I level competing at the Evanston Regional hosted by Northwestern. 
 
Kollore was a multiple-event champion during her time as a member of the indoor and outdoor track programs.  She wrapped up her career this year making her third straight appearance at the NCAA West Regional in the 100 meter hurdles.   Kollore has additional NCAA Regional appearances in the 4x100 meter relay and 200 meter dash. 
 
This year a record breaking 619 female student-athletes were nominated by NCAA member schools for consideration of the 2023 Woman of the Year award.  The group represents a diverse set of well-rounded student-athletes, with 24 different sports across all three NCAA Divisions.  The top sports represented this year are track & field, basketball, volleyball and softball.   The average GPA of the nominee pool is 3.76 with 264 nominees from Division I, 128 from Division II and 227 in Division III. 
 
Conference offices will now recognize up to two nominees that will be submitted to the NCAA which will then choose the Top 30 honorees – 10 from each division – from the conference-level nominees.  The Top 30 nominees will be announced in October with nine finalists then announced in November.  The 2023 NCAA Woman of the Year will be celebrated at the NCAA Convention in Phoenix in January.