General | 6/19/2015 1:22:00 PM

Indianapolis, Ind.----Wingate University senior student-athletes Christina Matheny (track and field, Akron, Ohio) and Jasmine DeBerry (basketball, Charlotte, N.C.) are two of 480 female student-athletes who are nominees for the 2015 NCAA Woman of the Year award. The total number of nominees is the most in the 25-year history of the NCAA WOTY program.
 
The Woman of the Year award honors graduating female college athletes who have exhausted their eligibility and distinguished themselves throughout their collegiate careers in academics, athletics, service and leadership. Of the nominees, 207 competed in Division I, 93 competed in Division II and 180 competed in Division III athletics.
 
Christina Matheny
 
A four-time All-Region performer in the high jump, Matheny was the USTFCCCA Southeast Region Field Athlete of the Year during the 2015 NCAA indoor and outdoor seasons. She is Wingate's first women's track and field All-American with her second team indoor honors this winter. Matheny tied her personal-best outdoor leap (1.73 meters) on the way to first team outdoor All-American laurels in May.
 
Matheny is a two-time winner of the South Atlantic Conference high jump championship. The four-time Wingate Field Performer of the Year earned a bronze medal in the 2015 SAC long jump competition. She holds Wingate's school high jump and heptathlon records. Matheny is a two-time Capital One Academic All-District III women's track & field/cross country team member.
 
Matheny's campus and community involvement list is lengthy. She has served as president and Make-A-Wish chair for Wingate's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC). Thanks to the leadership provided by Matheny and the WU SAAC, Wingate Athletics raised more than $5000 for Make-A-Wish during her junior year. She was an intern at the United Way of Central Carolinas in 2014.
 
A group leader for a March 2014 Wingate Alternative Spring Break (ASB) trip, Matheny took a group of students and University employees to build a house in Marianna, Fla. She also participated in ASB trips to Florida and Alabama, respectively, during her freshman and sophomore years. She served as an admissions tour guide, a campus safety student worker, a note taker for the disabled and a peer mentor as well.
 
Matheny graduated magna cum laude at the University's Commencement Exercises Saturday, May 16. She has a 3.72 GPA with her Human Services major. She earned the Arthur Joseph "Pepper" Geddings, Jr. Award for best overall student-athlete at Wingate's 2015 WUSPYS athletic awards celebration. In addition, she received the Wingate Student-Athlete Advisory Committee Leadership Award.
 
Jasmine DeBerry

DeBerry was one of 10 student-athletes named to the 2015 Allstate Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) Good Works Team®. During the summer of 2014, DeBerry donated bone marrow to a nine-year-old girl with Sickle Cell Anemia. DeBerry joined the Be The Match® bone marrow registry as an 18-year-old, dedicating her registration to a friend who died from Sickle Cell Anemia the previous year.

Legendary University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill women's basketball coach Sylvia Hatchell and the Tar Heel family honored DeBerry's selfless act prior to the Wingate-UNC women's basketball exhibition in November. On the court, DeBerry helped the Bulldogs win the 2014 SAC title. Wingate advanced to the NCAA post-season following her junior and senior seasons.

DeBerry is an active community servant. Through her church (University Church of Christ in Charlotte), she volunteers with a nursing home ministry and a Thanksgiving meal give-away. While at Wingate, she has visited Levine's Children's Hospital, Wingate Elementary School, East Union Middle School, Union Diversified Industries and the Habitat for Humanity recycling center. DeBerry has also assisted with Operation Christmas Child shoe box preparation and Johnny's Open Table soup kitchen activities at Wingate Baptist Church.
 
At Wingate's 2015 Commencement Exercises, DeBerry won the C.C. Burris Award, recognizing scholarship, leadership and service by a graduating female. A Communication Studies major at Wingate, DeBerry graduated cum laude with a 3.52 GPA.
 
The NCAA encourages member schools to honor its top graduating female student-athletes each year by submitting their names for consideration for the Woman of the Year award. Following the nomination process, conferences assess each nominee's eligibility and select up to two conference nominees. All conference nominees are forwarded to the Woman of the Year selection committee, which chooses the top 30 honorees - 10 from each division.
 
From the top 30, the selection committee determines the top three nominees from each division and announces the top nine finalists in September. The NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics then chooses from among those nine to determine the 2015 NCAA Woman of the Year. The 2015 NCAA Woman of the Year winner will be announced (and the Top 30 honorees celebrated) at the annual award ceremony Oct. 18 in Indianapolis.
 
WINGATE UNIVERSITY
 
Wingate University, ranked as the 10th "best value" in the South by U.S. News & World Report, serves more than 3,000 students on three campuses in Wingate, Charlotte and Hendersonville, N.C. Founded in 1896, the University offers 35 undergraduate majors, 37 minors and career concentrations, numerous pre-professional programs, graduate degrees in business, accounting, education, physician assistant studies and sport administration, and doctorates in pharmacy, physical therapy and education.
 
With a 14 to 1 student/teacher ratio, Wingate students gain the tools and support needed to excel in academics and apply that learning toward an extraordinary career and life. To view current news, video and story ideas, visit www.youtube.com/wingateuniversity. 
 
In addition to a robust intramural athletics program, Wingate student athletes compete in 22 NCAA Division II sports. The University has won the South Atlantic Conference Echols Athletic Excellence Award for the past nine years. For more information, go to www.wingate.edu.
 
Wingate is first among NCAA Division II Academic All-America®-producing colleges in the 2000's with 76 selections. Among North Carolina's colleges and universities, Wingate's 76 Academic All-America® honorees are number one during this millennium. Wingate's 85 lifetime Academic All-America® picks are tops among all SAC schools. For more information on WU athletics, go to www.wingatebulldogs.com.