JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – North Florida's Allison Benning is the Atlantic Sun Conference (ASUN) nominee for the NCAA Woman of the Year honor, the league office announced on Thursday. Established in 1991, the award recognizes female student-athletes who have exhausted their eligibility and distinguished themselves in their community, in athletics and in academics throughout their college careers.

"The Atlantic Sun Conference is proud to nominate Allison Benning for NCAA Woman of the Year," ASUN Commissioner Jeff Bacon sad. "She represents the very best of our conference with her championship success, leadership on and off the field, and a lasting impact on her campus and community."

Benning, the 2025 ASUN Softball Player and Pitcher of the Year, recorded 15 multi-hit games, 56 hits, 50 RBIs, 45 runs scored and 19 home runs last season, all of which UNF.  The Lake Elmo, Minn., native broke the North Florida Softball single-season and career home run record in the same weekend during the spring and helped the Ospreys capture their fourth conference tournament title. In her 34 appearances in the circle, she notched a 1.51 ERA, 169 strikeouts and pitched a total of 153.0 innings. She was also named the Mid-Major Player of the Year by D1Softball. A 2025 Summa Cum Laude graduate with a degree in Multimedia Journalism, she was the ASUN Scholar-Athlete of the Year in 2025 and earned a CSC Second Team Academic All-American.

All conference-level nominees will be forwarded to the Woman of the Year selection committee. The selection committee will choose the top 10 honorees in each division. From among those 30 honorees, the selection committee will determine the three finalists in each division. Finally, members of the Committee on Women’s Athletics will select the 2025 NCAA Woman of the Year from among the top nine finalists.

Later this fall, nominees who advance to the national Top 30 will receive a congratulatory letter from the NCAA. Top 30 honorees and nine finalists will be announced on NCAA platforms. The 2025 Woman of the Year will be named at January's NCAA Convention.