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Tiger Tennis Earns Six Awards From ITA
Aug. 17, 2007 MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Highlighted by individual honors for five different Tigers, the University of Memphis men's tennis team earned six honors from the Intercollegiate Tennis Association it was announced Friday. As a team, the Tigers were named an ITA All-Academic Team for the fourth time in the last five seasons for having a team GPA of 3.2 or higher. Five different Tigers were named ITA Scholar Athletes for having a GPA of 3.5 or higher during the 2006-07 academic year. The five players, Benedikt Fischer, Spencer Heflin, Amrit Narasimhan, Garrison Pilant and Tezar Putra, marked the most-ever individual honors received from the ITA in school history. The previous-best were three honorees during both the 2003 and 2004 seasons. Three of the five honorees return for the 2007-08 season, including Amrit Narasimhan, the 2006-07 Conference USA Newcomer of the Year and a Second Team All-Conference honoree, and Benedikt Fischer, who joined Narasimhan on the 2006-07 Conference USA All-Academic Team in his first year in a Tiger uniform. Spencer Heflin, a graduate of MUS in Memphis, capped his freshman season with a slew of academic honors and with a 10-6 mark in dual season singles play. Garrison Pilant graduated from Memphis in August of 2007, capping a three-year Tiger career with a 9-21 mark in singles and a 25-23 mark in doubles. Pilant missed his entire fall semester of play in his senior year due to a wrist injury. Putra capped his Tiger playing career in 2006-07 as well, opting to forgo his last seasons of collegiate eligibility to prepare for work in the missions field on return to his native Indonesia. Putra played in 18 matches during the 2006-07 season, sporting a 1-6 mark in dual season singles action. In all, Memphis has been named an ITA All-Academic Team five times (2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, and 2007). The five recipients of the Scholar Athlete Award in 2006-07 now mean 11 different Tigers have earned individual honors from the ITA. Former winners of the award include Michael LaHaie (2002), Andrew Olswing (2003, 2004), Joe Schmulian (2003), current Lady Tiger head coach Lee Taylor Walker (2003, 2004), Alex Bucewicz (2004), and current Tiger and Lady Tiger assistant coach Alex Jago (2005, 2006). Memphis was one of two Conference USA schools to earn the ITA All-Academic Team award (Rice University being the other), and was also one of two schools based in Tennessee (Nashville's Belmont University was the other) to post a team GPA of 3.2 or higher. ITA All-Academic Teams
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Memphis Tigers
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