ORLANDO, Fla. – Nova Southeastern junior tennis player,
Kristyna Hranacova, has been named the Sunshine State Conference's Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year, the league office announced on Thursday afternoon.
For the first time in school history, Nova Southeastern has a SSC Scholar-Athlete of the Year. The award honors the student-athlete who performed the best both in competitions and in the classroom.
The Möst, Czechia native continues to add on to her season accolades capping off a season in which she helped guide the Sharks to their second national title in three seasons. She also finished as the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's (ITA) No. 1 ranked Division II athlete in both singles and doubles play, becoming the first to do so in Division II since 2017, and the first to do so in the same season as winning the national championship since 2000.
In addition, she earned All-SSC First Team and ITA All-America in both singles and doubles.
While Hranacova shined on the court, she was an elite-level student as well. She was recently named to the College Sports Communicators' Academic All-America First Team while also being named to Nova Southeastern's Fall Dean's List and recognized as an NSU Director's Board Honoree.
Hranacova is a member of NSU's Chi Alpha Sigma honor society, which recognizes the combination of athletic and academic success. She is majoring in Management at Nova Southeastern and has acquired a cumulative GPA of 3.98 on a four-point scale.
She is the first Shark to win the Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year Award, and the eighth women's tennis student-athlete to take home the conference's top academic prize since its inception in 1995.
She also becomes the first Shark to win the award for either gender and only the fourth athlete all-time to take home end-of-year awards from the SSC. She joins RJ Sunahara (2022-23), Anton Lobanov (2016-17), and Emily Trieschmann (2022-23 & 2023-24), all of whom took home the SSC's Athlete of the Year distinction.
The Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year award is voted on by athletics directors, senior woman administrators, athletic communication directors and faculty athletic representatives from each of the 11 SSC member institutions.
The SSC began awarding Male and Female Scholar-Athletes of the Year during its 20th anniversary in the 1995-96 academic year. For the past 30 years, the conference's most prestigious academic honor has recognized student-athletes who have distinguished themselves both in competition and in the classroom. As the SSC celebrates 50 years of excellence, it also marks three decades of honoring the achievements of its student-athletes beyond the field of play.
Hranacova returns to the tennis courts in fall of 2026. To keep up to date with Nova Southeastern Tennis, follow us on social media @NSU_WTennis on X and Instagram, or by logging online to NSUSharks.com.
