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Long Beach State University Athletics
Tennis Team Receives ITA Academic Award
8/11/2008 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
Aug. 11, 2008
The Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) recognized Long Beach State Women's Tennis team and five players with ITA All-Academic Awards for 2007-2008. This is the fifth time in six seasons (2003, 2005-08) that Beach Tennis has achieved this national academic team honor.
The 49ers were one of only three Big West schools so recognized. The team achieved a combined 3.7 GPA this past season while on-court winning their fifth consecutive Big West Conference Championship.
Individually, five 49er women's tennis players were named ITA Scholar-Athletes: Deborah Armstrong, Stephanie Bengson, Hannah Grady, Lisa Hagele and Jessica Weeks. Bengson, Grady and Weeks are now multiple winners of the award.
Under Head Coach Jenny Hilt-Costello, achieving academic success is a standard for the women's tennis program. Along with the ITA awards, the tennis team has swept the athletic department team GPA competition five consecutive years.
"I am proud of our student-athletes and their dedication to their responsibilities on court and in the classroom," said Hilt-Costello. "You can do both and succeed at both. They live up to the phrase 'student-athletes. It is impressive that five of our six individually eligible players achieved the award."
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 eligible student-athletes whose names appear on the NCAA/NAIA/NJCAA eligibility form and have competed in one or more varsity matches must average into the GPA for the current academic year (including fall 2007 and spring 2008). 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). Thus the two January arriving 49er freshmen were not eligible for individual award consideration this year.
The ITA is the designated operating body for NCAA college tennis including playing rules, several major and summer tournaments as well as creating the weekly computerized rankings used for NCAA tournament selection.
A complete list of ITA Academic Award winners is available on their web site.
Players Mentioned
