INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. | Young Harris College softball player Haylie Shope is one of a 535 female college athletes that have been nominated for the NCAA Woman of the Year Award.

Established in 1991, the NCAA Woman of the Year award is rooted in Title IX and recognizes graduating female college athletes who have exhausted their NCAA eligibility and distinguished themselves in academics, athletics, service and leadership throughout their collegiate careers.

The nominees competed in 24 sports across all three NCAA divisions, including 251 nominees from Division I, 107 from Division II and 177 from Division III. Multi-sport student-athletes account for 141 of the nominees.

The NCAA encourages member schools to honor their top graduating female college athletes by nominating them for the Woman of the Year award. Schools can recognize two nominees if at least one is a woman of color or international student-athlete.

Next, conferences will select up to two nominees each from their pool of member school nominees. All nominees who compete in a sport not sponsored by their school's primary conference, as well as associate conference nominees and independent nominees, will be considered by a selection committee. Then, the Woman of the Year selection committee, made up of representatives from the NCAA membership, will choose 10 women from each division to make up the Top 30.

The selection committee will determine the top three honorees in each division from the Top 30, and the nine finalists will be announced this fall. From those nine finalists, the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics will choose the 2021 NCAA Woman of the Year later this fall.

Haylie Shope

• Shope is an infielder/right-handed pitcher from Murphy, North Carolina.
• Shope had a 3.87 cumulative GPA as an education major.
• Shope batted .323 in 46 starts with six doubles, 12 home runs, 42 RBI, .654 slugging percentage and .463 on-base percentage. Shope also went 4-0 in the circle with one save. In eight appearances (one start), she struck out 20 in 25.2 innings.
• Shope was fifth in the Peach Belt in RBI and sixth in home runs.
• Shope was named the PBC Player of the Week once (3/15/21).
• Shope was named to the All-Peach Belt first team.
• Shope played four seasons for the softball team and two more with the women's basketball team.
• On the diamond, she is among the top 10 in the YHC record book in 14 different categories, including second in home runs (35), third in RBI (138), and fourth in total bases (294) and walks (85). 
• Shope received the D2 Academic Achievement Award twice.
• Shope has been named to the PBC Team of Academic Distinction twice.
• Shope was named to the CoSIDA Academic All-District® III first team for Division II softball.

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