LAS CRUCES – The New Mexico State men’s and women’s tennis teams were both named to the 2008 Intercollegiate Tennis Association All-Academic Team lists that were released Friday, Aug. 8. The men’s team had four athletes honored as ITA Scholar Athletes while the women’s team had an NCAA-leading eight scholar athletes.

Several Division I women’s teams had seven student-athletes receive the scholar athlete award, but the eight Aggies honored were the most in the country and it set a school record.

Since the inception for the ITA All-Academic awards in 2002, the men’s team has earned all-academic team honors three times. The women’s team has set the standard for academic and athletic excellence, as they have been named to the all-academic team list in seven out of the eight seasons in the awards history.

Head coach Don Ball said that it is nice to get the awards that show the NMSU student-athletes are academically above the rest.

“We really have had great academic success with our teams,” Ball said. “We’ve always stressed academics and really our season goes from the first day of class to the last, so we really give our student-athletes leeway when they need to take care of their class work.

“On top of that this coming season we are really excited for because we have our two best teams that we’ve had, maybe ever. We should be really good. We know they will succeed in the classroom and that will translate into success in their lives.”

Gustave Diep, Jeff Pfeifer, Guy Rutten and Roman Stoisavljevic were the four Aggies honored from the men’s team. The four players honored tie the school record with the 2005 team who also had four players honored.

For Stoisavljevic this marks the second time he has been named to the scholar athlete list and for Diep this accolade follows up his ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District VI first team selection by CoSIDA in late May.

The eight women that earned the right to be ITA Scholar Athletes were; Aleksa Costa, Bianca Discordia, Stephanie Eusebe, Anne Fagegaltier, Zeljka Juricek, Sophia Marks, Alex Rios and Paulina Zuniga.

Fagegaltier was honored for the third time in her career and this was the second such honor for Zuniga. The other six Aggies received the scholar athlete honor for the first time in their careers.

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). 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).