SPARTANBURG, S.C. – The Southern Conference announced Tuesday that The Citadel’s Ali Ruffin, who competed in track & field and volleyball for the Bulldogs, and Western Carolina women’s soccer player Kirsten Hahn will be the conference’s nominees for the NCAA’s 2025 Woman of the Year award.
The NCAA Woman of the Year program was established in 1991 and honors the academic achievements, athletics excellence, community service, and leadership of graduating female college athletes from all three divisions. To be eligible, a nominee must have competed and earned a varsity letter in an NCAA-sponsored sport and must have earned her undergraduate degree by Summer 2025.
Eligible female student-athletes are nominated by their member school. Each conference office then reviews the nominations from its core member schools (and sponsored sports) and submits its conference nominee(s) to the NCAA.
In track & field, Ruffin was the 2024 SoCon Champion in the javelin and was named conference field athlete of the week three times during her career. In 2025, she set the school record in the javelin with a toss of 48.54 meters at the conference championship in May.
On the volleyball court, Ruffin is one of the most decorated players in Bulldogs history. In 2021, she won the Rayna Taylor Freshman of the Year award and was named to the all-tournament team after helping the squad become the first women’s sport to win a title in school history. Ruffin was named first-team all-conference in 2022 and 2023, along with being the SoCon Player of the Year in 2023. The Greenville, North Carolina, native was also an AVCA All-American Honorable Mention selection and AVCA East Coast All-Region Honorable Mention following the 2023 season. Ruffin was a second-team pick and an all-tournament team selection in 2024.
Ruffin was one of the recipients of a 2025 Southern Conference Presidential Scholarship. She was on the dean’s list each year at The Citadel, in addition to being named a Chi Alpha Scholar and NCAA Division I All-Academic Athlete in 2024. Over the last five years, Ruffin has assisted the Ronald McDonald House, volunteered at volleyball clinics, and been a dog walker for Pitt County Animal Service.
Hahn played in 78 games with 18 starts during her Catamount career, where she was a three-year captain on the squad. Hahn achieved the program’s fifth hat trick during the team’s home opener against UNC Asheville on Aug. 18, 2024, which led to her being named SoCon Offensive Player of the Week. In 2023, she helped Western Carolina win its third SoCon tournament title, with the other two coming in 2005 and 2008.
The product of Burlington, Ontario, Canada, was a SAAC representative during her college career, serving as co-president during the 2024-25 school year. Hahn volunteered in a variety of ways as a Western Carolina student, including tutoring in Animal Physiology, reading to school children, and being a volunteer vet assistant. Hahn’s work has been published three times, including a 2021 spot in The Asheville Citizen-Times. In addition to being a member of the Western Carolina Dean’s List for four years, Hahn also received the 2025 Dorothy Hicks Scholarship from the SoCon following this past school year.
In the fall, the NCAA Woman of the Year selection committee will identify the Top 30 nominees, 10 from each division, and from there, select three finalists from each division. From the nine finalists, the NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics then selects the NCAA Woman of the Year, who is named during the NCAA Convention.
Also nominated: Megan Marvin (Furman Cross Country/Track & Field), Gracie Lynn Butler (Samford Volleyball), Marcelle Baez-Carlo (Chattanooga Volleyball), and Olivia Lipari (Chattanooga Softball)