Former St. Thomas volleyball player Whitney Lloyd has been selected as one of the top 30 nominees for the 2017-18 NCAA Woman of the Year award.

Lloyd graduated in the fall of 2017 and received the 16th All-American honor and 22nd All-American honor in program history. She helped the Tommies clinch the MIAC regular-season title and reach the NCAA playoffs with a final record of 25-7 in 2017.

“I think that a lot of individual awards happen because of team success,” volleyball coach Thanh Pham said. “Whitney had great intensity when she played and an unwavering belief in herself and her team that we were going to pull through.”

The NCAA Women of the Year program honors athletics, academic achievements, community service and leadership of graduating college athletes.

Lloyd is one of two MIAC conference athletes who will represent the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference out of a total of 543 female athletes across three divisions. As one of the top 30 nominees, she will be recognized at the October awards dinner in Indianapolis.

Lloyd played on the USA Division III volleyball team that traveled to Brazil in 2017 and was awarded the NCAA postgraduate scholarship in the fall of 2017.

“[Volleyball] gave me a lot of confidence,” Lloyd said. “I feel like once you have trust in your abilities, you know you can do it.”

At her first year at St. Thomas, Lloyd wanted to focus on her academics and joined the club volleyball team. Lloyd decided to try out for the varsity team in her second year, beginning her four years of athletic eligibility which allowed her to continue to play in the fall of 2017.

“I really like what St. Thomas and the program stood for,” Lloyd said. “It is really about being a good teammate, being a good person and learning life lessons.”

Lloyd graduated with a 3.86 GPA as a biochemistry major. In addition to her studies at St. Thomas, she participated in research, tutoring, medical mission work in Nicaragua and volunteered at the Children’s Hospital in St. Paul and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

She is currently in medical school at the University of Minnesota-Duluth and plays in a recreational volleyball league for fun.

“There are a lot of things that I learned from volleyball that I can apply in the medical field; like teamwork, patience and putting others above yourself,” Lloyd said.

Ava Diaz can be reached at diaz7981@stthomas.edu