Nicole Loehle and Miku Okada Named 2021 NCAA Woman of the Year Nominees
NJIT seniors Nicole Loehle and Miku Okada have been selected as a nominee for the 2021 NCAA Woman of the Year award.
Rooted in Title IX, the NCAA Woman of the Year Award was established in 1991 to recognize graduating female student-athletes who have exhausted their eligibility and distinguished themselves in academics, athletics, service and leadership throughout their collegiate careers.
Nicole Loehle - Women's Soccer
Loehle, the Highlanders senior defender, was selected NJIT's Woman of the Year by New Jersey Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (NJAIAW).
She has been an integral part of the Highlanders' defense. She has started 50 of 55 games on the back line - including 43 of 44 over the last three seasons - and helped NJIT set several school records, including fewest season goals allowed (18, 2019), shutouts (9, 2018), and longest shutout streak (3 games, 2018).
Loehle's efforts also contributed to NJIT's highest win total and record (11-5-2, 2018) and a pair of trips to the ASUN Conference semifinals (as a No. 2 in 2018, after a first-round win as a No. 6 seed in 2019). Loehle was named to the ASUN Second Team in 2018 and the ASUN All-Tournament team in 2019.
Academically, Loehle, who graduated in May with a Chemical Engineering degree, boosted a 4.0 GPA in the spring semester. She is a three-time member of the ASUN Academic Honor Roll (2017-20) and a member of the Chi Alpha Sigma National College Athlete Honor Society.
Loehle spent time during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic helping the NJIT community by assembling masks and personal protective equipment (PPE) at NJIT's Makerspace.
Miku Okada - Women's Track and Field
Okada, who graduated in May with a mechanical engineering degree, recorded a 3.88 spring semester GPA and was named to the Dean's List six times.
She is an NJIT top-five performer in three events and the holder of four NJIT high jump records.
Okada recorded NJIT's first-ever America East women's medalist (bronze in High Jump) and was NJIT's first-ever scorer at ECAC/IC4As.
NJIT's senior speaker at the end of the year Athletics Award Ceremony, Okada was President of the Rotaract Club of NJIT, Vice President of the Society of Women Engineers and was selected women's track and field most outstanding player.
She was selected to the 2021 Mechanical Engineering Capstone Design Showcase Team.
Next, conference offices will select their nominees for NCAA Woman of the Year. Each conference nominee will be notified by the NCAA, and all conference-round nominees will be announced on ncaa.org in August.
Conference nominations are forwarded to the NCAA Woman of the Year Selection Committee, which identifies the top 10 honorees in each of the three NCAA divisions. From those 30 honorees, the selection committee then determines the three finalists in each division for a total of nine finalists.
The Committee on Women's Athletics will select the 2021 NCAA Woman of the Year from the nine finalists. At an award ceremony Oct. 17 in Indianapolis, the Top 30 honorees will be celebrated, and the 2021 NCAA Woman of the Year will be named.