Three more finalists join the “Best of the Best” of the Honda Sports Award winners on the Road to the 2013 Honda Cup.  Swimmer Allison Schmitt, a senior from the University of Georgia, is a 6-time Olympic medalist and member of Georgia’s record-breaking NCAA 400-yard freestyle relay championship team.
  
Elena Delle Donne, the 2012 Honda Inspiration Award winner and first-round WNBA draft pick, is a senior from the University of Delaware whose 3,039 career points places her fifth on the NCAA all-time scorer’s list in women’s basketball.  Delle Donne was the second overall pick in the WNBA draft to the Chicago Sky. 

Rounding out the Winter group is gymnast Bridget Sloan from the University of Florida who is the first woman to win U.S., world and NCAA all-around titles.
   
The Winter Honda Sports Award winners join an impressive Fall group of Besty Saina from Iowa State (cross country), Katie Reinprecht from Princeton (field hockey), Crystal Dunn from the University of North Carolina (soccer), and Alaina Bergsma from the University of Oregon (volleyball). 

The CWSA will present the 2013 Honda Cup, LIVE on ESPNU, Monday, June 24th at the USC Galen Center’s Brian & Susan Kennedy Founders’ Club in Los Angeles, California.

The slate of Fall Honda Sports Award winners is among the best ever as the competition heats up for the “Best of the Best” in women’s collegiate athletics on the Road to the Honda Cup.  Betsy Saina, a senior cross country national champion from Iowa State, was the first named shortly following an exciting win at the NCAA championship in the 6-kilometer course.  Katie Reinprecht, a senior All-American midfielder, was next after helping her Princeton field hockey team to its first-ever NCAA field hockey national championship after taking a year off to train with the U.S. Olympic field hockey team. 

Crystal Dunn, a junior All-American midfielder, led her North Carolina Tar Heels to the 2012 NCAA Women’s College Cup in soccer.  Rounding out the Fall Honda Sports Award 2012-13 class is senior All-American and National Player of the Year, Alaina Bergsma, an outside hitter from Oregon who led the Ducks to their first-ever NCAA women’s volleyball national championship final, falling just short to the Texas Longhorns.  The Fall Honda Sports Award winners kickstart the Road to the 2013 Honda Cup, scheduled to be awarded this June in Los Angeles, California before a live television audience on ESPNU.

LOS ANGELES, Calif.  (June 23, 2012) --- Brittney Griner, who electrified basketball audiences with her two-handed dunks and formidable shot blocking, is the 2012 Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year and recipient of the Honda Cup.  Griner was presented the prestigious award Sunday in a live telecast from the ESPN Studios in downtown Los Angeles.

            “On the 40th anniversary of Title IX, it’s a great day in the history of the Collegiate Women Sports Awards to look back on 36 years of our own history and honor such a game-changing athlete as Baylor University’s Brittney Griner,” said Jean Lenti Ponsetto, CWSA Chairwoman of the Board and Athletics Director at DePaul University.  “This is a great day for the intercollegiate athletics community as we showcase the nation’s best of the best in women’s collegiate athletics live on ESPNU.”

            The Baylor University junior was selected by the Collegiate Women Sports Awards program, now in its 36th year, from a trio of finalists that included soccer midfielder Teresa Noyola of Stanford University and softball pitcher Keilani Ricketts of the University of Oklahoma.  Griner received the Honda Cup at the live ceremony that also featured Honda Inspiration Award recipient Elena Delle Donne of the University of Delaware, top Division II athlete Kari Daugherty of Ashland University and Division III athlete Stacey Hagensen of Pacific Lutheran University.