The NCAA narrowed its original list of 517 nominees for the annual Woman of the Year award to 142 Wednesday with the announcement of the conference selections for the award with the Lady Hawks' own Ayana Walker earning recognition as one of the picks from the Gulf South Conference.

West Florida Volleyball player, Autumn Duyn, joined Walker as the GSC's choices for the NCAA's top female athlete for 2015-16 and were among the group of 37 women selected from the 24 Division II conferences.

Walker closed out her stellar career on the track in 2016 with a final trip to both the indoor and outdoor national championships where she clocked four All-America finishes. At the indoor championships she turned in a second place finish in the 400m – the event she tallied Shorter's first-ever NCAA national title in during 2015 – in a time of 52.86 and a fifth place time in the 200m (24.25). While at the outdoor championships she added two more All-America finishes as she placed third individually in the 400m in a time of 53.25 and took the first leg of the Lady Hawks' runner-up performance in the 4x400m (3:38.24).

In early September, the field of nominees for the award will be narrowed further to a Top 30 with ten coming from each division, before cutting the list to the top three from each division at the end of the month. Then, from that group of nine, one will be selected as Woman of the Year for 2016.

The Top 30 honorees will be celebrated and the 2016 NCAA Woman of the Year will be named at the annual banquet Oct. 16 in Indianapolis.