IOWA CITY, Iowa – University of Iowa senior Maddy Murphy has been named a Honda Sport Award finalist, it was announced Thursday by the Collegiate Women Sports Awards.
Murphy joins an exclusive list of Hawkeyes as a Honda Sport Award finalist, as she is the 12th student-athlete all-time to be up for the distinction. She is Iowa’s first finalist since Lauren Pfeiffer in 2008.
The Honda Sport Award is presented annually by the CWSA for the past 46 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 2022 Honda Cup will be presented on a telecast on CBS Sports Network.
The field hockey finalists, that also includes Liberty’s Jill Bolton, Maryland’s Brooke DeBerdine and North Carolina’s Erin Matson, were selected by a panel of coaches and experts from the National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFHCA). The Honda Sport Award winner for field hockey will be announced later this week after voting by administrators from over 1,000 NCAA member schools. Each NCAA member institution has a vote.
Murphy earned the distinction after becoming just the second four-time NFHCA All-American in school history. The Riana, Tasmania, native earned second-team All-America honors as a fifth-year senior to go along with first-team All-West Region and first-team All-Big Ten honors. She was also selected to the NFHCA Division I Senior Game.
The forward finished the 2021 campaign with 27 points to tie for the team lead. She scored seven goals and had a team high 13 assists and three of her strikes went for game winners. Murphy started all 98 games of her Hawkeye career (missing just one career game), where she scored 51 goals and tallied 37 assists for 139 career points. She finished her career ranked 10th in school history in goals.
Murphy is the first player in school history to earn five All-Big Ten honors and she joins Kristy Gleason as the second Hawkeye to earn four All-America distinctions.
The Hawkeyes finished the 2021 season with a 17-3 overall record and an NCAA Elite Eight appearance. Iowa was the outright Big Ten champion for the first time since 1999.
