sSPOKANE, Wash. — Pepperdine women's tennis senior Nikki Redelijk became the 11th Wave in history to be named the West Coast Conference's Mike Gilleran Scholar-Athlete of the Year, as announced by the conference on Wednesday.

Each year, the WCC's executive council votes to recognize the finest accomplishments in athletics, academics and community service. Named after Mike Gilleran, the first full-time WCC commissioner, individuals who have completed their collegiate eligibility are able to win the award.

Redelijk joins an illustrious group of Pepperdine student-athletes to win the WCC's Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year award — including former teammate Ashley Lahey, who won the award in 2021. She is the second Waves women's tennis player and the sixth woman from Pepperdine to earn this distinction.

A four-year contributor for the women's tennis team during some of the program's most successful years, Redelijk is one of two Waves to play on both of Pepperdine's semifinal teams (the other is Lisa Zaar). This past season, the Windermere, Fla. native played at the fourth and fifth singles positions for the Waves, where she helped Pepperdine go 21-7 and become the only team from outside the Power-5 conferences to reach the national semifinal.

During her senior season, Redelijk was an All-WCC Second Team selection in singles and an All-WCC Tournament team selection, as she helped the Waves win their tenth consecutive WCC Championship. Earlier this spring, she clinched the Waves' 14th-straight win against USC, which resulted in her second-career WCC Singles Player of the Week award. For the first time in her career, Redelijk was a nationally ranked singles player from wire-to-wire, helping the Waves have five players in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association polls for the majority of the season. All told, Redelijk amassed an 18-8 overall record and ended the year on a team-best nine-match win streak. 

In the classroom, Redelijk was a three-time WCC All-Academic first-team selection, a three-time ITA Scholar-Athlete and she earned Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year honors at the 2024 PEPP Espys. Redelijk was an active member of Pepperdine's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and Waves Leadership Council; this past year, she helped plan local events like the Malibu Tiny Tot Olympics, running a hygiene kit drive for unhoused neighbors and a blood drive donation to help fight cancer. She graduated from Seaver College this past spring with her degrees in political science and economics.