A year for women: Pioneers, record breakers and champions

Cal State San Marcos sophomore Jillian Albayati made history this month, becoming the first Division II student-athlete to play in a softball game and baseball game for her school on the same day. Christina Elsbury from Division III’s Gallaudet accomplished the feat in April 2023. 

In March, George Fox assistant coach Carole Laube and Massachusetts Boston assistant coach Jacqui Reynolds faced off in what is presumed to be the first time two women baseball coaches faced each other in NCAA history. 

RECORD BREAKERS

Two women’s basketball icons etched their names into the record books this season. 

On the sidelines, Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer became the NCAA’s all-time winningest coach in January. VanDerveer, who on April 9 announced her retirement after accumulating 1,216 career wins, passed former Duke men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, who held the record at 1,202 wins.

Caitlin Clark, Iowa superstar, broke the major-college women’s basketball all-time scoring record and didn’t stop there. She went on to eclipse the Division I men’s record set by LSU’s Pete Maravich. Clark also broke the Division I men’s and women’s single-season record for 3-pointers, previously held by sharpshooter Steph Curry. While leading her team to another national championship game, she also broke the Division I single-season scoring record, as well as the following NCAA Division I women’s tournament records: career assists, career 3-point field goals and career points. 

Several other women posted record-breaking performances this academic year. Below are a few highlights.

Must See Moments

Led by Clark, Iowa’s women played games on NBC, Fox and ESPN in the regular season. An overtime loss at Ohio State on NBC averaged 1.93 million viewers across the network and Peacock, peaking at 3.9 million during overtime. It was the most watched regular-season women’s basketball game on any network since 2010. The women’s basketball battle between then-No. 9 LSU and No. 1 South Carolina in late January drew 1.56 million viewers, besting the NBA’s Boston Celtics-Miami Heat matchup in the same window. On Super Bowl Sunday, Iowa vs. Nebraska drew 1.77 million viewers on Fox — a network record for the sport — while South Carolina vs. UConn averaged 1.05 million viewers on ESPN.

The Division I women’s basketball regular-season’s TV ratings were just a taste of the postseason attendance and ratings records that fell during March Madness — multiple times. 

During the Division I women’s tournament, ratings records were broken in every round. This included averaging 12.3 million viewers for the Iowa vs. LSU Elite Eight matchup, which became the most-watched women’s basketball game on record. This lasted only a few days as the Iowa vs. UConn Final Four battle drew 14.2 million viewers on average, which was topped by 18.7 million on average watching the championship game. 

In total, the three most-watched women’s basketball games on record happened in this year’s tournament. 

NCAA tournament attendance also saw new records. The 2024 NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Championship set an all-time attendance record with 436,055 fans, the first time the championship has topped 400,000. The final total eclipsed the previous mark set in 2023 (357,542) by 78,513 fans.

Nebraska volleyball set a world record for the largest crowd to watch a women’s sporting event, bringing 92,003 fans into its football stadium to watch the volleyball team in an exhibition match. The crowd broke the previous world record for women’s sports attendance — 91,648 — set on April 22, 2022, in Barcelona, Spain, for a Champions League match between FC Barcelona and Wolfsburg. The previous record for a women’s sports event in the United States was the 90,185 who attended the Women’s World Cup soccer final between Team USA and China at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, on July 10, 1999.

Nebraska-Kearney, which was part of Nebraska’s Volleyball Day, broke the Division II regular-season attendance record later in the fall, with 4,003 fans in attendance for a match. The National Collegiate Women’s Ice Hockey Championship title game drew the third-most fans (4,378) in its history and the most since 2006. 

In October, the Iowa women’s basketball team broke the single-game women’s basketball attendance record at its football stadium. In total, 55,646 people attended the Hawkeyes’ exhibition game against DePaul at Kinnick Stadium. The previous attendance record had stood since 2002, when 29,619 witnessed the national title game between Oklahoma and UConn at the Alamodome in San Antonio.

The 2023 NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball Championship broke the all-time collegiate volleyball attendance record for an indoor venue as 19,727 fans gathered in December in Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida, to watch Texas defeat Nebraska to win the national title. The previous record was set just three days prior, when 19,598 fans attended the semifinal matches. The championship match between Texas and Nebraska — the first NCAA volleyball championship to be broadcast on ABC — set a TV viewership record for the sport, averaging 1.7 million viewers opposite Sunday NFL games. This represented a 115% increase from the 2022 championship match viewership of 786,000. The 2023 semifinal matches were also the most watched ever, averaging 1.1 million viewers.

TROPHY TIME

While every championship performance or season is special, some stand alone. 

The University of Wisconsin-River Falls women’s ice hockey team is one of those. The Falcons (31-0-0) set a new Division III wins record en route to the program’s first NCAA title. The New York University women’s basketball team also went unbeaten to capture the Division III title, its first since 1997. Florida State women’s soccer notched an unbeaten record, as well, to win the Division I title in December. 

Pomona-Pitzer men’s cross country coach Amber Williams and Carleton women’s cross country coach Donna Ricks led their programs to Division III cross country titles this fall. It marked the first time in NCAA history that both the men’s and women’s champions had a woman as head coach. 

After losing all five starters from last year’s team, South Carolina women’s basketball completed the first perfect season for an NCAA title since UConn did so in 2016 and became only the 10th team ever to do so. The Gamecocks have now won 109 of their last 112 games and three of the past seven NCAA tournaments. Additionally, head coach Dawn Staley became the first Black Division I basketball head coach to finish a season undefeated. 

NC State’s women’s cross country team captured a three-peat in the Division I championship, becoming only the third school to do so and the first since Stanford’s women did so from 2005-07. 

In Division III, an undefeated Middlebury field hockey team captured its sixth straight championship last fall to add to its NCAA record streak. KK Newton became just the third goalie to make it through the entire Division III tournament without conceding a goal. 

Division I’s field hockey championship also included a bit of history. Erin Matson, a four-time national champion as a player at North Carolina, transitioned to head coach at age 22. She helped lead North Carolina to another title last fall, becoming the youngest NCAA coach in a women’s sport to do so.