Monday, August 09, 2010

SKILLMAN, N.J. - The Intercollegiate Tennis Association released its 2009-10 All-Academic Teams and Scholar Athletes on Tuesday and five Atlantic Sun Conference teams made the exclusive list with both of Stetson’s and Belmont's squads among the honorees as well as Kennesaw State’s men’s team. Only 29 men’s teams from across the nation were named to the team and 57 women’s squads received the honor.

To go along with the team awards, 24 A-Sun student-athletes were named Scholar Athletes -- 3.5 GPA or higher – with Stetson’s men’s team leading the nation with nine on the list, one more than Stanford and Yale. Kennesaw State and Belmont added four more Scholar Athletes on the men’s side apiece, while the Hatters’ women’s team contributed five and the Bruins' women's team contributed two student-athletes.

Stetson and Belmont join only 16 other Division I schools considered an All-Academic squad in both men's and women's tennis.

Male recipients from Stetson included Mark Mestan, Alex Hackett, Chris Swanteson, Cesare Gallo, Chris Hyma, Maksim Levanovich, Dane Moran, Njal Stene and Erik Halaj. On the women’s side for Stetson; Breanna Atkinson, Natalie Gorham, Katherine Nowicki, Jacqueline Faulk and Shannon Gunning received recognition from the ITA. Belmont's male recipients included Rodrigo Amaral, Renato Antun, Felipe Cirne Lima and Jonathan Murrell, while Lindsay Bennett and Natalia Nunes represented. Ryan Bouttell, Gokalp Ozdemir, Simon Janik and Justin Suesserman represented the Kennesaw State men.