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COOKEVILLE, Tenn. -- The Tennessee Tech University tennis team has been named a 2015 All-Academic Team and three Golden Eagles are Scholar-Athlete Award winners, announced this week by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA).
Tech is one of two Ohio Valley Conference teams to receive the ITA All-Academic Team distintion, along with SIU Edwardsville. Individually, Alberto Esteban, Gagan Jain and Alex Arovin were recognized as Scholar-Athlete Award winners, three of nine players throughout the OVC on the honor list.
"This team really takes seriously a commitment to achieve at the highest level in both academics and athletics," said coach Kenny Doyle, whose squad has captured the league's regular season championships three of the last four years. "We're very proud to have three individuals recognized, but for the entire team to receive the award really speaks loudly to the fact that every player on our roster is getting the job done in the classroom."
As a team, the Golden Eagles acheived a team GPA of 3.35 for 2014-15. Arovin, a junior from Donetsk, Ukraine, posted a 3.78 GPA. He was named the OVC Player of the Year, earned all-OVC honors, and was selected as Tech's Outstanding Male Athlete of 2014-15. Jain, a junior from Littleton, Colo., was the President's Award winner in tennis and owned a 3.75 GPA. Esteban, a sophomore from Madrid, Spain, also earned all-OVC honors while compiling a 3.65. All 11 players on the roster figured into the team GPA, with all 11 recording a GPA above 3.0 for the academic year.
Alex Arovin |
Alberto Esteban |
Gagan Jain |
Joining the Tech trio from the conference are Jack Desse, Matthew Hutchinson, Nicolas Vincent and William Gaffigan from SIUE, Preston Touliatos of Eastern Illinois and Caio Neal of Belmont.
"At its core, college tennis is about higher education! And, our sport has always been a leader when it comes to high performing scholar-athletes," said Timothy Russell, Chief Executive Officer of the ITA. "This group represents the best of the best, as do their coaches who regularly serve as such great teachers and mentors of our sport's finest young people. Hearty and well-deserved congratulations coupled with loud cheers go out to all of these superstars of intercollegiate athletics."
The ITA All-Academic Team award is open to any member program that has a cumulative team grade point average of 3.20 or above (on a 4.00 scale). All eligible student-athletes whose names appear on the NCAA, NAIA or Junior/Community College eligibility form and have competed in one or more varsity matches must average into the GPA for the current academic year (including fall 2014 and spring 2015).
In order to earn ITA Scholar-Athlete status a player must meet the following criteria: 1.) be a varsity letter winner, 2.) have a grade point average of at least 3.50 (on a 4.00 scale) for the current academic year, and 3.) have been enrolled at their present school for at least 2 semesters (including freshman thorough senior year).
All members of the 2015 ITA All-Academic Teams and ITA Scholar-Athletes will receive a certificate to recognize the achievement.
About the ITA Awards program:
As the governing body of collegiate tennis, the ITA promotes both the athletic and academic achievements of varsity collegiate tennis players. The ITA, which is comprised of nearly 1,700 men's and women's varsity coaches and 20,000 student-athletes from over 1,200 institutions, has a comprehensive awards program for players and coaches to honor excellence in academics, leadership, sportsmanship and athletic performance. The ITA annually recognizes over 3,000 student-athletes on an individual and team basis from over 500 different varsity tennis programs. For more information on the ITA Awards program, please visit http://www.itatennis.com/AboutITA/AbouttheITA.htm
