Women's Track & Field | August 14, 2024

AUGUSTA, Ga. – The Peach Belt Conference (PBC) announced on Wednesday morning that former Clayton State University track & field standout Ariyonna Jones was selected to represent the league as the 2024 NCAA Women of the Year nominee. Georgia College & State University women's basketball player Jada Warren was also nominated to represent the conference as well.  Warren and Jones are two of 10 athletes represented by Division II and two of 30 represented across the NCAA landscape. 
 
Jones joins the likes of women's soccer players Jessica Charman and Isa Massa and cross country and track & field athletes Joy Diaz and Maia Kuhnen as recent nominations from Clayton State.  Most notably, Kuhnen represented the department in the top 30 in 2016. 


 
Jones, who is a native of Dublin, Ga., had an illustrious career for the Lakers on the track.  In her career, Ariyonna is a four-time USTFCCCA All-Region selection, 10-time PBC All-Conference selection, and holds the school record in eight events across the indoor and outdoor landscape.  Most recently, Jones earned the conference championship in the indoor 200m dash and outdoor 200m, 400m, and in the 4x400 meter relay. 2024 saw Jones also hit NCAA Division II provisional marks in the indoor 400m dash and the outdoor 200m and 400m dashes. Also this season, she helped her team to a second-place finish in the Conference Championship which is the best finish for the team in school history. 
 
Jones also saw high achievement in the classroom as she is a three-time PBC Presidential Honor Roll selection and was honored as a College Sport Communicators (CSC) All-District, PBC Team of Academic Distinction, and USTFCCCA Scholar Athlete selection in 2024.  In addition to her academic success, Jones does quite a bit of community service work as she represented her track & field team on the Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) and worked with the Community Teen Coalition. 
 
ABOUT THE AWARD
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 2024. 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. All nominees who compete in a sport that is not sponsored by their school's primary conference, as well as associate conference nominees and independent nominees, will be sent to a separate pool to be considered by a committee. Then, the NCAA Woman of the Year selection committee identifies the Top 30 – 10 from each division –and from there selects 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 will be named later this fall.
 
The Clayton State Department of Athletics would like to congratulate Ariyonna on her nomination for this prestigious award. Please visit claytonstatesports.com for the most updated information regarding the 2024 NCAA Women of the Year Award. 
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