San José State women’s golfer Lucia Lopez Ortega has been selected as one of the two Mountain West nominees for the 2025 NCAA Woman of the Year Award.
Since its establishment in 1991, the NCAA Woman of the Year program has recognized excellence in academics, athletics, community service, and leadership in graduating female student-athletes. 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 the summer of 2025.
The Mountain West Golfer of the Year and individual champion in 2025, Lopez Ortega closed her career with her fourth straight All-Mountain West selection. The Sa Coma, Mallorca, Spain, native shot a 5-under-par 211 at the 2025 Credit Union 1 Mountain West Women’s Golf Championship for her first career MW title. She helped San José State to five top-five finishes on the season, including at the MW tournament, where the Spartans fell in a playoff.
Individually, she posted three top-10 finishes on the season and turned in 11 rounds of par or better, including six rounds in the 60s en route to a team-best 73.03 stroke average.
Lopez Ortega helped SJSU to NCAA Regional berths in each of her four years on the team, with the Spartans advancing to the NCAA Championship three times in that span. She was the NCAA stroke-play runner-up as a sophomore in 2023, earning All-America honorable mention that season, and was the MW Freshman of the Year in 2022. Ortega helped San José State claim MW team titles in 2022 and 2024.
Lopez Ortega graduated summa cum laude with a degree in biological sciences, posting a 3.91 GPA. She was a four-time member of the Women’s Golf Coaches Association All-American Scholar Team as well as earning Academic All-Mountain West and MW Scholar-Athlete honors four times each. She claimed College Sports Communicators Academic All-District honors in 2025.
This summer, Lopez Ortega was one of 42 spring student-athletes nationwide to be awarded a $10,00 NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship. This award is given to deserving recipients who have demonstrated academic achievements, athletic excellence and leadership within their community. Lopez Ortega will continue her studies this upcoming school year at San José State, pursuing her master’s degree in biology.
Lopez Ortega served as a teaching assistant for three semesters, mentoring fellow students and coordinating a team of teaching assistants. She was also one of the SJSU women’s golf team’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee representatives, worked clinics of First Tee and at the ANNIKA Intercollegiate, and volunteered with the Bay Area Women’s Sports Initiative, introducing young girls to sports and sharing her journey as a female athlete while promoting the values of confidence, teamwork and staying active. Lopez Ortega, who aspires to be a physician-scientist, also volunteered at local county hospitals.
Conference offices could nominate up to two student-athletes from among their school nominations if at least one was an international student-athlete or student-athlete of color. 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 2025 NCAA Woman of the Year.
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