Women's Soccer | 7/23/2015 2:20:00 PM
INDIANAPOLIS—Jenny Cislo, a Class of 2015 member of the NJIT women's soccer team, was selected as Woman of the Year for Independent programs, the NCAA announced on Thursday.
The NCAA Woman of the Year program honors the academic achievements, athletics excellence, community service and leadership of graduating female college athletes from all three divisions. To be eligible, nominees must have competed and earned a varsity letter in an NCAA-sponsored sport and must have completed eligibility in her primary sport.
Eligible female student-athletes are nominated by their member school. Each conference office then reviews the nominations from its member schools and submits its conference nominee to the NCAA. With NJIT competing as a Division I Independent in 2014-15, Cislo was selected by the NCAA from among all programs that competed as Independents in all sports.
The Woman of the Year process will continue when the NCAA Woman of the Year selection committee selects the Top 30 – 10 from each division and then three finalists from each division. The Committee on Women's Athletics selects the overall winner from the Top 9.
All 30 Woman of the Year honorees will be recognized, and the 2015 Woman of the Year announced, at an awards dinner at the Westin Indianapolis on Sunday, October 18, 2015.
NJIT's Cislo was one of 480 nominees nationally (207 – Division I; 93 – Division II; and, 180 – Division III), marking the most in the 25-year history of the Woman of the Year program.
The product of Crownsville, MD, is in the discussion for best women's soccer player in NJIT history. An anchor for the Highlander defense from the day she arrived on campus, she started all 76 games the team played in her four-year career. On top of that, she played every minute of every game for four seasons.
With NJIT playing as a women's soccer Independent her last two seasons, she was recognized by the website
CollegeSportsMadness as a first-team performer among the Division I Independents in both 2013 and 2014. As a senior, she was selected as Defensive Player of the Year among the DI Independents.
Enrolled in NJIT's Albert Dorman Honors College, Cislo was named to the University Division Scholar All-East Region Team, compiling a 3.85 cumulative GPA. She was selected earlier in 2014 as one of five NJIT chemical engineering students to receive internships and scholarship grants from New Jersey-based Merck, one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies. She was also honored as NJIT's recipient of the New Jersey Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (NJAIAW) Woman of the Year award.
