LANCASTER, Pa. –Johns Hopkins’ Abby Birk and Anjali Devireddy have been selected as the Centennial Conference nominees for the 2023 NCAA Woman of the Year award.
The Centennial nominees for NCAA Woman of the Year are selected annually by the conference Senior Woman Administrators.
The Blue Jay duo were chosen from among a group of eight candidates submitted by CC member institutions. Now in its 33rd year, the Woman of the Year award recognizes graduating female college athletes for excellence in academics, athletics, community service, and leadership. Every year, the NCAA encourages each member institution to honor its top one or two graduating female student-athletes by submitting their names for consideration for the Woman of the Year award.
To be eligible, a nominee must have competed and earned a varsity letter in an NCAA-sponsored sport and must have earned her undergraduate degree by summer 2023. The NCAA Woman of the Year selection committee identifies the Top 30 – 10 from each division – and from there selects three finalists from each division. From the nine finalists, the NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics then selects the NCAA Woman of the Year, who is named during a luncheon at the NCAA Convention. Click here for more information on the award and a list of previous winners.
A midfielder for the JHU field hockey team, Birk wrapped up her career as one of the most decorated players in program and Centennial Conference history. The Louisville, Ky. native was a three-time All-America selection by the National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFHCA), earning first team accolades in both 2021 and 2022 and third team honors in 2019. She was the first three-time All-American and first two-time first-team honoree in Hopkins program history, and one of just seven field hockey players in Centennial history to earn NFHCA All-America accolades three times. Birk was also the two-time NFHCA Regional Player of the Year, a four-time all-region selection, and four-time All-Centennial honoree. The midfielder consistently performed her best when it mattered most, earning CC Tournament MVP honors in both 2021 and 2022.
Birk and the Blue Jays achieved unprecedented success throughout her four years in Baltimore. Hopkins reached the NCAA Final Four each of her four seasons (2018, 2019, 2021, 2022) with two national runner-up finishes (2021, 2022). The Final Four appearances were the first in program history. Hopkins posted the four winningest seasons in program history with a 79-11 (.878) record during her career, including a 39-1 (.975) mark in Centennial play that included four CC titles. Individually, Birk holds the JHU records for career assists (44), game-winning goals (14), games played (90) and games started (84). She also ranks second in JHU history with 128 points and third with 42 goals. In the Centennial record book, she ranks fourth in assists, seventh in game-winning goals and is one of 33 players in conference history with more than 100 career points.
Birk’s lengthy list of accolades doesn’t end on the playing field, as she was equally accomplished in the classroom and through her work in the community. A public health studies and medicine, science & the humanities major, Birk finished her undergraduate studies with a 3.76 cumulative grade point average before enrolling in the maternal and child health certificate program in JHU’s Bloomberg School of Public Health. As an aspiring physician, Birk worked as a clinical research coordinator at the Monochorionic TWIN Lab at the Johns Hopkins Center for Fetal Therapy, volunteered as a research assistant at the Johns Hopkins Clinical ARVD/C Program, served as a summer emergency room volunteer at Norton’s Children’s Hospital in her hometown of Louisville, and mentored fellow JHU undergraduate students as a study consultant. She was also a member of Blue Jays LEAD, a group that focuses on empowering student-athletes to lead and inspire action in their communities, as well as serving as the field hockey representative on the campus Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC).
Birk earned a number of academic honors, headlined by becoming the first two-time Academic All-American in program history by the College Sports Communicators (CSC / formerly CoSIDA). She also received an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship, earned NFHCA National Academic Team honors four times, was named to the CC Academic Honor Roll four times, and received the 2022 Robert H. Scott Award, presented annually to the JHU senior student-athlete who demonstrates excellence in athletics, scholarship, and extracurricular participation throughout their career.
A standout in both singles and doubles for the Hopkins women’s tennis team, Devireddy is one of six players in Centennial history to win multiple CC Player of the Year awards. She was a three-time All-Centennial performer in singles, earning first team honors in 2021 and 2022 and honorable mention accolades in 2023, and was a two-time first-team selection in doubles (2021, 2022). Playing anywhere from No. 1-4 in the singles lineup, with the majority of her matches at the No. 1 spot throughout her career, Devireddy posted a 28-18 career singles mark. In doubles, she registered a 31-10 record, primarily at the No.1 and No. 2 positions.
Devireddy helped lead the Blue Jays to three Centennial Conference championships (2021, 2022, 2023). JHU has now captured 16 consecutive Centennial women’s tennis titles and won 155 consecutive conference matches. In her three full seasons, Devireddy and the Blue Jays advanced to the NCAA Tournament each year, highlighted by a trip to the NCAA quarterfinals in 2023. The 2023 JHU squad also tied the CC record for most victories in a single season with a 21-4 record. Throughout her career, Hopkins compiled an impressive 43-13 (.768) record including a perfect 25-0 mark in CC competition.
Off the court, Devireddy made her mark in a variety of ways in both the classroom and throughout the community. A neuroscience major, Devireddy boasted a 3.94 cumulative grade point average and was named to the 2023 College Sports Communicators Academic All-America second team. She was also the 2022 Centennial Conference Women’s Tennis Scholar-Athlete of the Year and earned CC Academic Honor Roll three times.
The Austin, Texas native has also received several honors from the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA). In 2022 she collected the Division III Arthur Ashe Leadership Award, a prestigious national honor that dates back to 1982 and recognizes the student-athlete who has exhibited outstanding sportsmanship and leadership in addition to scholastic, extracurricular and tennis achievements. In 2023 she was one of four national finalists for the ITA Sally Ride STEM Award, created to honor a female student-athlete who demonstrates zeal, dedication, and perseverance toward her tennis training and competition, STEM studies, and long-term goals. Additionally, Devireddy was a four-time ITA Scholar-Athlete honoree.
Devireddy’s passion for helping disadvantaged patients overcome struggles and receive access to healthcare is clearly evident through her many work and volunteer experiences. She spent hundreds of hours working as a research assistant at both the Kadam Lab for neonatal seizures and the visual thinking lab at the Kennedy Krieger Institute and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She volunteered for three years at Mount Washington Pediatric Hospital, caring for and helping infants reach developmental goals. Devireddy also volunteered as a tennis instructor with ACEing Autism, an organization that helps children with autism benefit from social connections and fitness through affordable tennis programming. On campus, Devireddy also served as the women’s tennis team representative of SAAC, where she was part of the community service committee.
A record-breaking 619 female student-athletes were nominated by NCAA member schools for consideration for the 2023 Woman of the Year award. Within the nomination pool, 264 nominees competed in Division I, 128 in Division II, and 227 in Division III.
