Priebe Nominated For NCAA Woman Of The Year
Golfer Kayla Priebe is UW-Oshkosh's nominee for the 2019 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Woman of the Year Award.
Priebe, an accounting major who graduated in May with a 4.00 cumulative grade point average, earned a pair of all-region citations while competing for the Titans the past four seasons.
Established in 1991, the NCAA Woman of the Year Award honors graduating female college athletes who have exhausted their eligibility and distinguished themselves in academics, athletics, service and leadership throughout their collegiate careers.
NCAA member schools nominated a record 585 student-athletes for the 2019 Woman of the Year Award. The nominees competed in 23 different sports across all three NCAA divisions, including 262 from Division I, 131 from Division II and 192 from Division III.
Next, conference offices will select their conference nominees for NCAA Woman of the Year. Each conference nominee will be notified by the NCAA, and all conference-round nominees will be announced on ncaa.org in early August.
Conference 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 candidates, 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 2019 NCAA Woman of the Year from the nine finalists. The 2019 NCAA Woman of the Year will be announced Oct. 20 at an awards dinner in Indianapolis, Ind.
In addition to Priebe, the other five Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) nominations were UW-Eau Claire's Erica Oawster (track & field); UW-La Crosse's Margaret Harings (soccer); UW-Platteville's Katie Wardinski (cross country/track & field); UW-River Falls' Haley Nielsen (ice hockey); and UW-Stevens Point's Karen Wethal (track & field).
Priebe, a graduate of Fox Valley Lutheran High School in Appleton, was recently named to the 2019 Google Cloud Academic All-America® NCAA Division III Women's At-Large Team. The three-time Google Cloud Academic All-District® 6 selection was named to the UW-Oshkosh Dean's List during all eight semesters of her attendance. She shared the 2019 UW-Oshkosh John Taylor Senior Scholar-Athlete Award with softball player Abby Menting.
Priebe was a member of Beta Gamma Sigma, Wisconsin Institute of Certified Public Accountants, UW-Oshkosh's Accounting Club and UW-Oshkosh's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. She volunteered with Special Olympics Polar Plunge, Together We Rise, Feeding America and Polk Library. She represented UW-Oshkosh at Viessmann Sustainability Seminar in Allendorf, Germany, in May 2018.
Priebe earned NCAA Division III All-Central Region honors for the second time in three seasons after averaging 78.6 strokes during her 16 18-hole rounds of the 2018-19 campaign. She scored 80 strokes or better 14 times, including a season-best 74 on the first day of the UW-Oshkosh Titan Classic held Sept. 1 at the Oshkosh Country Club.
Last fall, Priebe finished sixth with 236 strokes at the 54-hole WIAC Championship held in Reedsburg. She also placed second at the UW-Oshkosh Titan Classic, UW-Whitewater Invitational and UW-Stevens Point Mad Dawg Invitational.
Priebe previously took second place at the WIAC Championship in 2015 and third in both 2016 and 2017. She received all-conference first team recognition in 2015, 2016 and 2018 and second team accolades in 2017. The 2016 WIAC Player of the Year finished 49th at the 2016 NCAA Division III Championship in Houston, Texas.