Tennis Teams Earn ITA Academic Awards
MIDLAND, MICH. – The Northwood University men's & women's tennis teams each were honored by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) for their impressive academic achievements.
Both programs claimed All-Academic Team honors. In addition six student-athletes from each team were named scholar athletes. On the men's side, Ben Brandherm, Ivan Medvynskyi, David Reinauer, Pablo Salamanca, Francois Sauerman and Johannes Sauerman claimed the honors. For the women's team, Carol Arnez-Mercado, Anna Goncharova, Vasilisa Mikhailova, Tetyana Pavych, Olesia Riabchuk and Elizabeta Velichko were honored.
The ITA All-Academic Team award is open to any ITA program that has a cumulative team grade point average of 3.20 or above (on a 4.00 scale). All varsity letter winners were factored into the cumulative team GPA for the current academic year (including fall 2016 and spring 2017).
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 through senior year).
The level of academics for the tennis programs under Zane Colestock last year are among the best in the country. All 15 players on the two programs have GPAs above 3.2, while 12 student-athletes were above 3.83 overall. The women's team finished the year with a 3.82 GPA – the men ended up at 3.80.