Di Lorenzo a Nominee for Honda Sport Award
6/2/2016 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
June 2, 2016
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Francesca Di Lorenzo, a freshman on the Ohio State women’s tennis team, is one of four nominees for the Honda Sport Award for tennis, THE Collegiate Women Sports Awards (CWSA) announced Thursday.
The Honda Sport Award has been presented annually by the CWSA for the past 40 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 2016 Honda Cup which will be presented on a live telecast on CBS Sports Network on June 27, 2016, in the Founders’ Room at the Galen Center on the campus of the University of Southern California in downtown Los Angeles.
The nominees were chosen by a combination of NCAA finish and rankings. The Honda Sport award winner for tennis will be announced next week after voting by administrators from over 1,000 NCAA member schools. Each NCAA member institution has a vote.
The other nominees are Haley Carter from the University of North Carolina, University of Virginia’s Danielle Collins and Pepperdine University’s Luisa Stefani.
Di Lorenzo had an outstanding first collegiate campaign. The Big Ten Player of the Year and Big Ten Freshman of the Year, she became just the third Buckeye to claim All-America honors. She was the No. 3 seed in the NCAA singles championship and reached the Round of 16 in the tournament, ending the year ranked fourth nationally. Di Lorenzo won the ITA National Indoor Championship in the fall, the first ITA national title for the program.
An Ohio State Scholar-Athlete, Di Lorenzo was 37-5 on the year, setting the program record for single-season wins. All four of her losses during the spring came in three sets, with three of the four to Top 15 ranked players. Di Lorenzo, rated the top newcomer in college tennis in the fall, was ranked in the Top 5 all spring, including four weeks as the No. 1 player (the first in program history).
Di Lorenzo and the Buckeyes won both the outright Big Ten regular season title and the Big Ten Tournament championship and were the first Buckeye squad to host NCAA matches and reach the quarterfinals.
