BERKELEY – Cal sophomore Kathleen Baker, who captured three individual events at the NCAA Championships, has been nominated for the Honda Sport Award for women's swimming & diving, Chris Voelz, Executive Director of THE Collegiate Women Sports Awards (CWSA), announced Thursday.
 
At the NCAA meet earlier this month, Baker captured the 200-yard individual medley and 100 and 200 backstrokes, setting a school record in the IM. She also helped the 200 medley relay to a national title and NCAA meet record, and she broke Natalie Coughlin's 15-year-old school mark in the 100 back leading off the 400 medley relay. In addition, Baker was part of a school record-setting 400 free relay. As a result, she was named the CSCAA National Swimmer of the Year at the NCAA meet.
 
A Golden Bear swimmer has won the Honda Sports Award seven previous times – Mary T. Meagher (1985, '87), Coughlin (2002, '03), Dana Vollmer (2009), Caitlin Leverenz (2012) and Missy Franklin (2015). Both Meagher in 1987 and Franklin in 2015 went on to claim the Honda Cup as the top female student-athlete in all of college athletics.
 
The Honda Sport Award has been presented annually by the CWSA for the past 41 years to the top women athletes in 12 NCAA-sanctioned sports and signifies "the best of the best in collegiate athletics."  The winner of the sport award becomes a finalist for the Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year and the prestigious 2017 Honda Cup, which will be presented on a live telecast on CBS Sports Network on Monday, June 26, 2017, in Los, Angeles.
 
In addition to Baker, the other nominees are Lilly King of Indiana University, and Katie Ledecky and Simone Manuel from Stanford
 
The nominees were chosen by a panel of coaches representing the Collegiate Swimming Coaches Association of American (CSCAA). The Honda Sport Award winner for swimming & diving will be announced next week after voting by administrators from over 1,000 NCAA member schools. Each NCAA member institution has a vote.