OU's Kaylee Dao Nominated for NCAA Woman of the Year

The Sooners' soccer star is one of two nominees from the Big 12 Conference

OU Athletics

Oklahoma soccer star Kaylee Dao is one of two Big 12 Conference nominees for the prestigious NCAA Woman of the Year Award.

The league also nominated Texas swimmer Alison Gibson.

Dao, who grew up in Tulsa, arrived at OU after a decorated high school career at Jenks and Tulsa Soccer Club and TSC Hurricane.

Her TSC Hurricane team was the first in Oklahoma history, boys or girls, to win a club national championship when won the ECNL North American League title in 2012-13.

At Jenks, Dao was Oklahoma’s Gatorade Player of the Year.

At OU, she started all 20 games in 2019 and earned multiple national accolades, including Senior CLASS Award First Team All-American and CoSIDA First Team Academic All-American.

She also was chosen as the Big 12 Fall Scholar-Athlete of the Year and an Academic All-Big 12 First Team performer.

Dao finished as the third leading goal scorer in program history with 29 career goals and was second on OU’s career list with 11 game-winning goals.

She led Oklahoma with 13 goals, one assist and 27 points to earn unanimous All-Big 12 First Team recognition in 2019.

Gibson, from Austin, was named the unanimous Big 12 Diver of the Year in 2020.

She won nine events this past season in the 1m and 3m events. At the USA Winter Championships, she took second on the 3m with a 954.90, and took second on the 3m synchronized springboard (594.27), both of which qualified her for Team USA to at the World Cup.

Gibson is a three-time Academic All-Big 12 First Team honoree and CoSIDA Academic All-America First Team honoree. She was also granted an NCAA Winter Sports Postgraduate Scholarship and the Big 12 Prentice Gautt Postgraduate Scholarship.

The NCAA Woman of the Year award recognizes graduating female student-athletes for excellence in academics, athletics, community service and leadership. A total of 161 female student-athletes have been named candidates by conferences and independent schools.

The Woman of the Year Selection Committee, made up of representatives from the NCAA membership, will now choose the Top 30 honorees — 10 from each division — from the conference-level nominees. The Top 30 honorees will be announced in September.

The committee will narrow the pool to three finalists from each division, then the NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics will select the 2020 Woman of the Year from the nine finalists.

Former Texas Tech runner Ifeatu Okafor earned the honor in 2013.

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