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Bowling Green State University Athletics
Tennis Falcons Named an ITA All-Academic Team for 2010-11
July 28, 2011 | Women's Tennis
School-record seven Falcons earn individual honors from ITA
The Bowling Green State University tennis team was well represented as the Intercollegiate Tennis Association announced its academic awards for the 2010-11 academic year. To no one's surprise, BGSU has been named a 2011 ITA All-Academic Team, and a school-record seven Falcons have been named ITA Scholar Athletes.
Christine Chiricosta, Nikki Chiricosta, Jessica Easdale, Maddy Eccleston, Katie Grubb, Jade Johnson and Emily Reuland all earned the individual Scholar Athlete awards for the Falcons of head coach Penny Dean. Christine Chiricosta was a senior, Easdale a junior, Eccleston, Grubb and Johnson were sophomores and Nikki Chiricosta and Reuland were freshmen on the '10-11 squad.
The Falcons' total of seven honorees was the most of any Mid-American Conference institution, and BGSU was tied for third nationally. Only Butler University (nine) and Brown University (eight) had more honorees. BG was one of six schools to have seven student-athletes on the list.
Among MAC schools, Western Michigan University had five players honored, while Ball State University had four. No other league institution had more than three award winners.
Five of the seven aforementioned Falcons have been named an ITA Scholar Athlete in every year of their respective collegiate careers. Christine Chiricosta earns the honor for the fourth time, Easdale for the third-straight year and Eccleston for the second time as a collegian. Nikki Chiricosta and Reuland each earned the accolade in their first season at BGSU.
The ITA, the governing body of collegiate tennis, bestows its academic awards on deserving teams and student-athletes for men and women at all collegiate levels - NCAA Divisions I, II, III, NAIA and junior colleges. 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/CA JUCO eligibility form and competed in one or more varsity matches must average into the GPA for the current academic year (including fall 2010 and spring 2011).
In order to earn ITA Scholar-Athlete status, a player must meet the following criteria
- be a varsity letterwinner,
- have a grade point average of at least 3.50 (on a 4.00 scale) for the current academic year, and
- have been enrolled at their present school for at least 2 semesters (including freshman through senior year).
The ITA honors are just the latest academic accolades for the Falcons. In June, Christine Chiricosta was named an Academic All-American for the third consecutive season. She was selected to the Capital One Academic All-America First Team, after earning second-team honors as a junior and third-team accolades in her sophomore year. That sophomore-season honor made her the first player in BGSU tennis history to be named to the Academic All-America Team.
Christine Chiricosta had qualified for Academic All-America consideration by being named to the Capital One Academic All-District First Team for the third consecutive year, and she and Eccleston each were voted to the Academic All-MAC Team in late May.
Additionally, the Falcons earned an NCAA Public Recognition Award, given to teams scoring in the top 10 percent in each sport with their Academic Progress Rates, for the sixth consecutive season. The team has earned that award in every year since its inception. In fact, BGSU has had a perfect score of 1,000 in every year of the APR's existence.
The Falcons concluded the 2010-11 season with 15 wins, just one shy of matching the school record, and finished three spots higher than predicted in the MAC standings. BGSU finished the campaign with a dual-match record of 15-8 and a MAC ledger of 5-3. The Falcons, picked to place seventh in the MAC in the preseason coaches poll, actually finished fourth before advancing to the semifinal round of the MAC Championships. Seven of the eight players on the 2010-11 roster are slated to return in '11-12 for Dean and assistant coach Cindy Yonker.
