Paige Gooch named NCAA top 30 Women of the Year

Tuesday, September 2, 2014
Paige Gooch will be honored as NCAA's top 30 Women of the Year. (Courtesy Photo)

Paige Gooch '14 (Fort Mitchell, Ky./Beechwood) is among the Top 30 honorees for the 2014 NCAA Woman of the Year and one of just 10 from Division III.

The Top 30 will be honored at the NCAA Woman of the Year dinner on Sunday, October 19, at the JW Marriott in Indianapolis.

The nine finalists (three from each division) will be announced in late September.

The honorees combined for a 3.85 grade point average, earned 49 Capital One Academic All-America honors, won 27 national championships, garnered 38 all-America accolades and totaled 24,000 hours of community service.

Gooch, who was a four-year starter for the women's golf team and currently works with Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis, was one of 446 student-athletes nominated by schools from all three NCAA divisions and was one of the North Coast Athletic Conference's two NCAA Woman of the Year nominees after earning the Pam Smith Award.

In June, Gooch became DePauw's 22nd NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship recipient as she was one of just 174 student-athletes on all NCAA levels to receive the one-time $7,500 grant.

A two-time Capital One Academic All-America selection, Gooch was also a four-time Women's Golf Coaches Association All-American Scholar.

The Phi Beta Kappa and Chi Alpha Sigma (National College Athlete Honor Society) inductee also earned DePauw's Amy Hasbrook Award as the University's top senior female student-athlete.

Gooch earned a bachelor of arts degree and graduated cum laude with a major in economics and a minor in mathematics.

She also dedicated a great deal of her time to community service efforts.

Since arriving on campus in the fall of 2011, she was an active member of the Alpha Chi Omega Domestic Violence Awareness group which participated in fundraising events to raise awareness and money for the issue.

A volunteer at the Ronald McDonald House in 2013, Gooch was a Quantitative Reasoning Tutor on campus since 2012.

After having the opportunity to participate in the Management Fellows Honors Program, she gave back in the 2013-14 academic year as she assisted incoming students into the program with resume preparation, mock interviews and other job workshops.

Gooch also served in many leadership roles during her collegiate years, including a term as President of Alpha Chi Omega in 2012-13 and as a member of the Presidential Ambassador committee in 2013-14.

On the links, Gooch joined Sarah Gates '07 as the only four-time all-America selections in DePauw women's golf history when she earned first team honors this year to go along with second team distinction each of her first three seasons.

This season Gooch posted a 78.2 stroke average over 25 rounds for the second-best average in a DePauw season and was named the North Coast Athletic Conference Women's Golfer of the Year for the second straight time after winning her second consecutive NCAC title.

She earned similar honors in 2011 in the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference prior to being named the Division III Freshman of the Year.

Gooch finished her career with a 79.02 average over 98 rounds which broke the previous DePauw record held by Gates.

This year she won five of the 11 tournaments in which she competed with 10 finishes in the top 10.

Over her career she won 10 events and was a top-10 finisher 32 times.

During her four seasons, the Tigers finished no worse than eighth at the national championships and matched the program's best finish with a second-place showing in 2012.

As an individual, Gooch finished in the top 14 three times in her four NCAA appearances.

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