DAHLONEGA – University of North Georgia softball player Hannah Forehand was named an NCAA Woman of the Year nominee, showing exemplary character on and off the field for the 2023 NCAA DII National Champions in the 2023 season.

Forehand played in 70 of North Georgia's 71 softball games in 2023, helping the Nighthawks break the program single-season win record (64), culminating in the program's second NCAA National Championship. 

From Kennesaw, Ga., Forehand hit .352 this year with a team-leading 18 home runs and led NCAA Division II with 81 RBIs. She graduated with a degree in Kinesiology with a concentration in Exercise Science and a 3.79 GPA. She served as the secretary for the UNG Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) for two years and as a mentor for incoming student-athletes.

Forehand joins a group of five Peach Belt Conference student-athletes to earn a nomination, of the five nominees for the NCAA Woman of the Year, one will be selected by the Peach Belt Conference senior woman administrators to be the league's representative and move forward in the process. The PBC's selection will be announced in the coming weeks.  

All conference-level nominees are forwarded to the Woman of the Year selection committee. The selection committee will choose the top 10 honorees in each division. From among those 30 honorees, the selection committee will determine the three finalists in each division. Finally, the members of the Committee on Women's Athletics will vote from among the top nine finalists to determine the 2023 NCAA Woman of the Year.

Later this fall, the national Top 30 honorees and nine finalists will be announced. The 2023 NCAA Woman of the Year will be announced at the 2024 NCAA Convention in Phoenix.