Women's Tennis Recognized for Academic Success
8/9/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
Aug. 9, 2007
East Lansing, Mich. - The Intercollegiate Tennis Association released its 2007 ITA All-Academic Team and Scholar-Athlete honors, awards given to programs and individuals exhibiting excellence in the classroom. The entire Michigan State women's tennis program as well as three individual student-athletes were selected to be the list. Sarah Andrews (Darwin, Australia), Christine Bader (Okemos, Mich.) and Pascale Schnitzer (Santiago, Chile) are MSU's ITA academic recipients.
The 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 2006 and spring 2007).
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).
Bader enters her final year after playing 23 singles matches and 20 doubles matches at the No. 1 spot in 2006-07. Thus far in her career, Bader owns a 46-47 (.495) singles record and 51-47 (.520) doubles record. The senior has been selected twice to the Academic All-Big Ten team.
Schnitzer closed out her collegiate career as a Spartan with an overall singles record of 58-47 (.552) and doubles mark of 47-40 (.540). Throughout her career, Schnitzer was also named to the Academic All-Big Ten team three times and was named an ITA Academic All-American in 2006.
Andrews' senior year was highlighted by an outstanding doubles run, posting a 17-6 record in 2007. Overall, Andrews' career records amounted to 63-58 9.521) in singles and 67-58 (.536) in doubles. In 2006, Andrews was name the team's Most Valuable Player.
Joining the Spartans, four other Big Ten schools - Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota and Ohio State - appear on the ITA list.
