2015 ITA All-Academic Teams and Scholar-Athletes

SKILLMAN, N.J. — Three more individual awards trickled in last week for the Academy of Art University women's tennis team, as three players received Scholar-Athlete recognition from The Intercollegiate Tennis Association.
 
Junior Michelle Dandik Zaale (Fashion Design), freshman Gabriela Rivas (Advertising) and junior Lucia Zavarcikova (Motion Pictures & Television) each received the ITA Scholar-Athlete award. All three athletes were named to the Pacific West Conference Academic All-Conference team in June and also helped the women's tennis team win the Best Team GPA award at the second annual ARTYs awards in May.

"To have three ITA Scholar-Athletes is a true representation of how hard this team works both on and off the court," said Academy of Art head coach Nicole Briceño-Garzón. "I always talk about committing yourself to becoming the best in everything you do and not settling. I am proud of these girls for doing just that and continuing to raise the bar for our program."

In order to earn ITA Scholar-Athlete status a player must meet the following criteria: 1.) be a varsity letter winner, 2.) have a GPA 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).
 
The PacWest was honored with three team and 24 scholar-athlete recognitions between the men and women conference teams. The Cal State Stanislaus and Dominican women, and the Sonoma State men were all honored as teams. Dominican led the conference with five scholar-athlete honorees; while the Holy Names men, and Sonoma State men and women each had four.