STAFF REPORTS
ONEONTA, N.Y. — The Intercollegiate Tennis Association recently announced its 2018 All-Academic Teams and Scholar-Athletes. In all, 735 teams and 4,328 student-athletes across all five divisions of college tennis were honored. Earning honors from Oneonta were six women and four men along with the women’s team for their accomplishments in the classroom.
The five women included recent graduate Samantha Felice (Seneca Falls), seniors Alyssa Brault (Rochester) and Michelle Halpern (Rye Brook), junior Danielle Swierczyna (Hamilton) and sophomores Julieta Eulau (Oceanside) and Dorothy Zeisler (Schenevus). On the men’s side it was recent graduates Timothy Distler (Amityville), Zach Lasky (Colonie) and Cole Laffitte (East Setauket) along with senior Nicholas Fox (Commack).
Brault played in the No. 1 singles position and earned first team All-Conference honors last fall. She also played at No. 1 doubles with Eulau where they earned first team All-Conference honors as well. Felice, Halpern and Swierczyna were all starters for the Red Dragons while Zeisler saw action in one doubles match.
All four men’s players were starters for Oneonta. Both Laffitte and Lasky finished with 52 and 50 career singles victories respectively. Distler finished with a singles and doubles combined mark of 52 victories. Fox enters his final year with 47 combined singles and doubles wins.
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 varsity letter winners are factored into the cumulative team GPA for the current academic year (including fall 2017 and spring 2018).
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 through senior year).
