Barnes Selected As NCAA Woman Of The Year Nominee

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Posted: Monday, September 17, 2007

INDIANAPOLIS - UW-Eau Claire track and field athlete Steph Barnes (Sauk City, Wis./Sauk Prairie High School) has been named a nominee for the 2007 NCAA Woman of the Year award, NCAA officials have announced.

Barnes joins only 29 other women from Division I, II and III for this honor. Later in September, a committee will narrow down the 30 nominees to nine finalists and will select this year's Woman of the Year at the annual awards dinner on October 27 in Indianapolis. The 30 nominees, ten from each division, were narrowed down from a field of 128 at the end of August.

The Woman of the Year award is in its 17th year of existence and honors female student-athletes who have completed their eligibility in collegiate athletics and have excelled in the classroom, in their sport and in their community.

Barnes is a two-time national champion, winning the pole vault event at the 2005 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championship and the 2006 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championship. She was also the 2007 Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletics Conference Co-Scholar-Athlete for indoor track, holds two school pole vault records, one conference record, and was a second team ESPN the Magazine Academic All-District V selection in 2006 and 2007.

Barnes "will leave this institution (UW-Eau Claire) as one of our most decorated student-athletes," former Sports Information Director Tim Petermann said at this year's Hall of Fame and Super Six Banquet. The Super Six awards are UW-Eau Claire's highest athletics honor which recognizes outstanding athletes who have also demonstrated a high level of proficiency in the classroom. This is the second year in a row Barnes received the award.

- KM -