ST. PAUL, Minn.- The Upper Midwest Athletic Conference announced on Monday that
Marylyn Schroyer (Ft. Collins, Colo./Ft. Collins) from the University of Northwestern Volleyball team has been named the UMAC Nominee for 2024 NCAA Woman of the Year.
Below is the press release from the UMAC:
"The Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC) Senior Woman Administrators Council has selected volleyball standout
Marylyn Schroyer (Ft. Collins, Colo./Ft. Collins) of the University of Northwestern Eagles as the UMAC nominee for the 2024 National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) Woman of the Year honor, the conference announced Monday.
Schroyer will be one of a select number of conference nominees from all divisions still eligible to be considered for the prestigious award later this fall. She emerged from a
talented pool of six UMAC student-athletes – who were nominated by their respective institutions – and will move on to represent the conference in the next stage.
The NCAA Woman of the Year program was established in 1991 and honors the academic achievements, athletics excellence, community service, and leadership of graduating female college athletes from all three divisions. To be eligible, a nominee must have competed and earned a varsity letter in an NCAA-sponsored sport and must have earned her undergraduate degree by summer 2024.
The NCAA Woman of the Year selection committee will announce the top 10 from each of the three NCAA divisions and then three finalists this fall before the Committee on Women's Athletics will select the final winner to be announced and recognized at the 2025 NCAA Convention in January.
Schroyer, a libero, was a two-time AVCA All-American who recorded the fifth-most digs in NCAA DIII history with 3,337. She helped lead Northwestern to the NCAA DIII Final Four in 2022 and the Elite Eight in 2023 with a 9-4 career record in NCAA postseason matches. Overall, Northwestern won 84.8% of their matches with a 145-26 record in her five seasons as an Eagle. She also served as a team captain her final two years.
In the UMAC, Schroyer earned First-Team All-Conference honors all five seasons and was named Player of the Year in 2022, Defensive Player of the Year three times, and Defensive Player of the Week 17 times. She helped lead Northwestern to both regular season and postseason tournament championships in all five of her years, winning 98.5% of her combined regular season and postseason matches against conference opponents with a 66-1 record.
Academically, Schroyer graduated with dual degrees in Business Management and Marketing with concentrations in Graphic Design and Entrepreneurship. She also earned a minor in Biblical Studies. She was named UMAC Academic All-Conference three times and helped Northwestern win the AVCA Team Academic Award all five years.
Off the court, Schroyer served as a youth volleyball coach, packaged meals for Feed My Starving Children, volunteered at Otter Lake Elementary, participated in cancer drives, and served on a 10-day trip to the Dominican Republic where she hosted youth clinics, worked in a shelter for women and girls who had escaped sex-trafficking, served at several different orphanage sites, helped lead educational programming for youth, and packaged meals for village families.
The six UMAC institutional honorees for NCAA Woman of the Year were:
