JERSEY CITY, N.J. (June 12, 2022) - After a stellar season and even more impressive overall career on and off the court for the Saint Peter's University women's basketball team, graduate student
Kendrea Williams added another accolade to her long list of awards Tuesday as became one of eight student-athletes from the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference to be nominated for the 2022 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.
A three-year letter winner with the Peacocks, Williams will leave the program as one of the most prolific scorers in program history with 1,167 career points in just 89 games as a Peacock. In 2021-22, Williams appeared in and started all 31 games for SPU averaging 14.5 points and 2.7 rebounds per game. She reached 2,000 career points overall, 1,000 points at SPU, set the program career record for 3-pointers made and had the fifth-best season free throw percentage in program history (.846) all in the same season. In addition, she is the first known student-athlete (male or female) to score 1,000 points at both an NCAA Division III institution (FDU-Florham) and an NCAA Division I institution.
In her career, Williams was selected to the All-MAAC teams twice, earning MAAC All-Second team honors in 2021-22 and Third Team accolades in 2020-21. She also was a WBCA Honorable Mention All-American and the MAC Freedom Player of the Year in her time at FDU-Florham before transferring to Saint Peter's.
Williams was also a standout in the classroom, earning both her undergraduate and master's degrees in elementary education from SPU in just five years while posting a remarkable 3.96 cumulative grade-point average. She was selected to the MAAC All-Academic team all three seasons with the Peacocks (2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22) and was named the SPU Student-Athlete of the Year this season.
The NCAA Woman of the Year award honors graduating female student-athletes who have distinguished themselves throughout their collegiate careers in the areas of academic achievement, athletics excellence, service and leadership.
The NCAA Woman of the Year 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. Multisport 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, the MAAC will select up to two nominees each from the nine nominees. 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.
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