(INDIANAPOLIS, Ind.) – The NCAA announced today that Jennies soccer player Kayla Shain is the MIAA’s honoree for the NCAA Woman of the Year Award.
Shain was named the MIAA’s Ken B. Jones Award Winner as the conference’s top female student-athlete in early June.
In August, the Woman of the Year selection committee will select the top 10 honorees in each division to be recognized. In September, the selection committee will announce the top nine finalists (three from each division), and the NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics will vote from those nine finalists to determine the 2013 Woman of the Year.
The NCAA will announce the 2013 Woman of the Year and will honor the top 30 nominees Oct. 20 in Indianapolis.
Shain was one of three winners of the Dr. Peggy Martin Award as UCM’s top female senior student-athlete. She was the 2012 MIAA Soccer Player of the Year and a first team All-MIAA selection. She was named to the All-MIAA team four times during career, helping lead the Jennies to three straight MIAA regular season titles without losing a match (34-0-2).
She helped lead UCM to three straight NCAA Tournament appearances and two straight trips to the Sweet 16. She was a two-time All-Region selection, including first team honors as a senior and was named a CoSIDA First Team Academic All-American.
She graduated in May with a 4.0 GPA in speech pathology and was a four-time winner of the MIAA’s Academic Excellence Award for a 4.0 grade point average. She was a four-time MIAA Scholar-Athlete having earned all-conference honors while maintaining a GPA of 3.5 or higher and a four-time member of the MIAA Academic Honor Roll.
Off the field, Shain was named an honorary first grader at Maple Grove Elementary in Warrensburg where she frequently visited to read to students. She participated in the Polar Plunge at the Lake of the Ozarks to raise money for the Special Olympics.
She has been involved in various activities to aid the underprivileged and homeless. She was also a participant in Thrive Night, a night of games for students with special needs.
She is a member of the Honors College at UCM, a member of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars, the Delta Epsilon Honor Fraternity, the Dean’s List at UCM and she was named the outstanding Spanish minor at Central Missouri.