Two UW athletes named 2020 NCAA Woman of the Year nominees

LARAMIE, WYOMING (July 14, 2020) — A pair of former Wyoming Cowgirls, Madi Fields, and Ana Royo will represent the University of Wyoming as 2020 nominees for the NCAA Woman of the Year Award.

The duo is part of a record-setting 605 nominees, representing multiple sports across NCAA Divisions I, II, and III that are honored by their athletics conferences and by independent schools.

Fields, who was a 2019 All-Mountain West Team selection, finished her illustrious career as the program’s all-time leader in career digs with 1,773.

The Oceanside, Calif., native led the MW in both total digs with 561 and digs per set, averaging 4.71 in 2019.

The 561 digs are the second-most in a single season in UW history.

Fields also had the fifth- and eighth-most single-season dig outputs in program history during her career and finished in the top-10 in the league in digs three times while also leading the Cowgirls in digs all four years.

The former Cowgirl finished her career appearing in the ninth-most sets in Wyoming history, playing in 439 and won the Mountain West Defensive Player of the Week accolade five times, including four in 2019. 

Off-the-court, Fields graduated in the spring with a degree in Management/Human Resources and finished with a cumulative GPA of 3.56 and was a multiple-time recipient of the Mountain West Scholar-Athlete Award and member of the Academic All-Mountain West Team.

Ana Royo, who is a native of Vall De Uxo, Spain, finished her two-year career in the Brown & Gold with 27 singles wins and 30 doubles victories, including posting a 14-7 mark in 2019-20.

[bsa_pro_ad_space id=45]

 

In September, Royo, along with her doubles partner, Ana Fernandez, took home the B Bracket doubles title at the Wyoming Invite. The pair also took second at the ITA Bedford Cup earlier in the fall. 

Royo graduated this spring with a perfect 4.0 in Microbiology and was named to the CoSIDA Academic All-District Team in May for her athletic and academic accomplishments.

Also in May, Royo was named the ITA Mountain Region’s recipient of the Cissie Leary Sportsmanship Award.

A two-time Mountain West All-Academic Team member, Royo was also a 2018-19 MW Scholar-Athlete Award winner. 

The Mountain West will announce its two finalists to represent the league, before the Woman of the Year Selection Committee, made up of representatives from the NCAA membership.

From there, the committee will choose the top-30 honorees – 10 from each division. 

From the top 30, the Woman of the Year selection committee will determine the top three finalists in each division.

The NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics will choose the 2020 NCAA Woman of the Year, announced this fall. 

In its 30^th year of the award program, the Woman of the Year is strong in four different pillars, academics, athletics, service, and leadership.

[bsa_pro_ad_space id=46]