NORMAL, Ill. – The Illinois State women's tennis team was among several standout programs named a 2020 Division I Women Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) All-Academic Team on Monday. In addition, six Redbird student-athletes were named ITA Scholar-Athletes in the yearly recognition by the organization.
"This group has really impressed me with their resiliency and dedication this year, which was particularly challenging," ISU head coach Maja Kovacek said. "I'm very proud of their achievements in the classroom and happy they are continuing the tradition of excellence and high academic standards we have for our program at Illinois State."
To be named an ITA All-Academic Team, programs must have a team grade-point average (GPA) of 3.2 or above (on a 4.00 scale) for the current academic year. The Redbirds posted a team GPA of 3.97 during the Spring 2020 semester, making them the women's team with the highest semester GPA in the department once again. Their efforts helped the department as a whole set a new semester GPA record of 3.61 during the Spring 2020 semester.
A total of six ISU student-athletes were also named ITA scholar-athletes and they were Laura Arciniegas, Natalia Bravo, Tara Damnjanovic, Elena Jankulovska, Ivon Mihaleva and Jelena Karla Vujicic. To be named an ITA Scholar-Athlete, honorees must have a grade point average of at least 3.5 (on a 4.00 scale) for the current academic year. The academic honor is the second of the summer for Arciniegas, Bravo and Mihaleva, who were each named Missouri Valley Conference Scholar-Athlete First-Team members for the 2019-20 campaign.
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