Big South Announces 2021-22 Woman of the Year Co-Honorees
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (www.BigSouthSports.com) – The Big South Conference announced today that UNC Asheville track & field athlete Claudia Prieto Alcaide (Madrid, Spain) and Campbell lacrosse player Julianna Sanchez (Annapolis, Md.) have been named the Big South Conference’s co-honorees for Woman of the Year for 2021-22. The conference’s Woman of the Year award is sponsored by Big South Corporate Partner Musco Sports Lighting.
The Big South’s Woman of the Year Selection Committee voted Prieto Alcaide and Sanchez the co-honorees among the seven candidates nominated for the award. The Committee used criteria of Service and Leadership (including community services, campus activities and leadership positions), Academic Achievement, Athletics Excellence and a Personal Statement from each candidate. As the Big South’s Woman of the Year, Prieto Alcaide and Sanchez are nominated as the conference’s candidates for the national NCAA Woman of the Year Award.
Earning her degree in Biology, Prieto Alcaide graduated Summa Cum Laude with a 3.97 GPA while earning five track & field All-Conference medals for the Bulldogs. This past season, she was voted the Big South Women’s Indoor Track & Field and Outdoor Track & Field Scholar-Athlete of the Year, was the Big South’s Women’s Field Athlete of the Week during the indoor season, broke multiple school indoor records, and set personal-bests in both the 60-meter dash and triple jump during the indoor campaign. Her time of 7.11 seconds in the 55-meter dash at the Appalachian Open last December ranks sixth all-time in Big South history, while her indoor long jump effort of 6.03m (19-09.50) at the Big South Championship is sixth-best in league annals in that event. Prieto Alcaide holds the program record in the outdoor triple jump and long jump, and her long jump of 6.09m (19-11.75) at April’s VertKlasse Meeting is fifth on the conference’s all-time performance list. She capped her 2021-22 season by competing in the long jump at the NCAA East Preliminaries.
Off the track, Prieto Alcaide was a SAAC representative for the track & field team, served as an on-campus student health ambassador the last two years, was a biology tutor, and graduated with distinction as an Undergraduate Research Scholar and a University Scholar. She was part of the Honors Program at Asheville, presented at the Undergraduate Research Symposium, and her research paper was published in the UNCA Journal of undergraduate research this past year. Prieto Alcaide was also a member of the XAE National Athletic Honors Society, was a two-time Chancellor’s List honoree and four-time Dean’s List member. She was named to the Big South’s Academic Team for Indoor Track & Field (2020, 2021) and Outdoor Track & Field (2020, 2022).
Sanchez has been a three-year starter for the Camels (2020-22), and earned All-Conference honors in 2021. She graduated Magna Cum Laude this past spring with a 3.83 GPA as a business management major. This past season, she missed the majority of the year, being limited to nine games due to a would-be season-ending injury, but still tallied 22 goals and nine assists for 31 points to finish fourth on the squad in scoring. She was awarded “Miss Campbell” at the 2022 Campbell Athletics Award Banquet, which is the athletic department’s most coveted award as it encompasses an individual’s impact on athletics, service and academics on campus throughout their duration as a student-athlete.
In the classroom, she was a four-time Big South Presidential Honor Roll member -- including the Commissioner’s Award in 2020 with a 4.0 GPA and recognized in Phi Kappa Phi (top 7% of graduating class), was the recipient of the top Presidential Academic Scholarship all four years as an undergraduate, graduated as a member and eventually was President of ODK Honors Society, and was the recipient of the William Cameron Edwards Business Scholarship, Dr. Ernest Paskel Sauls Business Scholarship, and the Lewis and Annabelle Fetterman Business Scholarships. During her time in Buies Creek, Sanchez served on Campbell’s SAAC Executive Board in Community Engagement as well as Diversity and Inclusion. She helped create the school’s first Polar Bear Plunge in 2020 to raise funds for the Special Olympics of North Carolina. She also spearheaded various donation drives on campus, such as a Peanut Butter Drive, Clothing Drive for Afghanistan and a Blood Drive. Sanchez ran a “Thanks Project” for Campbell University Faculty and Staff. Other community service projects and initiatives she was involved in while at Campbell included serving as a Sampson Correctional Institution Initiative Leader, Campbell’s Trunk or Treat Women’s Lacrosse, a PALS Summer Camp leader, Night to Shine Prom Volunteer, Career Day at a local elementary school, Habitat for Humanity, the One Love Foundation, and Campbell’s athletic L.E.A.D program.
Prieto Alcaide and Sanchez are among 577 overall nominees for NCAA Woman of the Year, which is now in its 32nd year. 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.
Also nominated for the Big South and NCAA Woman of the Year award were Campbell lacrosse player Megan Matthews, High Point lacrosse player Abby Hormes, Radford volleyball players Grace Green and Kennedi Johnson, and USC Upstate softball player Sarah Price.
The NCAA 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 2022 NCAA Woman of the Year later this fall. The Big South had its first national finalist in 2005 when Big South Hall of Famer Janiva Willis of Winthrop was named one of the 10 finalists.