The University of Mississippi Athletics
Lady Rebels Win Prestigious ITA All-Academic Team Award
7/18/2005 | Women's Tennis
July 18, 2005
OXFORD, Miss. - The Ole Miss men's and women's tennis teams won the prestigious ITA All-Academic Team Award for the academic year 2004-05, as the Intercollegiate Tennis Association announced its academic award winners Monday. In addition to the team awards, four Rebels and three Lady Rebels were named ITA National Scholar-Athletes.
Ole Miss was one of only two schools in the SEC to have both its tennis teams earn this award, which is given to teams who boast a cumulative grade point average of 3.2 or higher for the 2004-05 academic year. Mississippi State was the other conference school to achieve this.
The Rebels, who ended the year ranked No. 3 in the nation, were the only team to finish the year ranked among the top five nationally and earn the ITA All-Academic Team Award. They also won this award in 1997 and 2000.
"It is a tremendous credit to the players for achieving such a high level on the court and in the classroom," head coach Billy Chadwick said. "We are obviously pleased to be one of the top teams in the nation on the court and one of the best in the classroom. The Ole Miss community should be very proud."
The Lady Rebels achieved the top academic award for the ninth consecutive year, having won the award every year since 1997.
"To win this award nine times in a row sounds like it would be easy, but it's not," head coach Mark Beyers said. "It's very hard to achieve this once let alone nine straight years. This is a credit to the players' hard work and determination to be successful off the court as well as on the court. We are very proud of them for accomplishing this."
Individually, Rebel netters Fredrik Aarum, Juan Pablo Di Cesare, David Donaldson and Bram ten Berge and Lady Rebels' Chloe Carlotti, Nika Koukhartchouk and Virginia Tomatis were named ITA Scholar-Athletes.
Donaldson, a senior, earned the honor for the third time in his career, and Aarum, a sophomore, earned the honor for the second time. Di Cesare, who completed his junior year, and ten Berge, who finished his first campaign as a Rebel in 2005, received the accolade for the first time. Donaldson, Di Cesare and ten Berge all posted perfect 4.0 GPAs for the spring.
While succeeding in the classroom, the Rebels won their second consecutive overall SEC Championship and advanced to the NCAA Final Four for the fourth time in the last 10 years. In addition, the Rebels won the SEC Western Division for the fourth year in a row.
For the Lady Rebels, Carlotti and Koukhartchouk received this honor for the first time in their careers, while rising senior Tomatis earned the distinction for the third time in her career.
In addition to their outstanding achievement in the classroom, the Lady Rebels won their first ever SEC Western Division Championship and returned to the NCAA Championships for the first time since 2002. Carlotti became the seventh All-American in the history of the program.
