SKILLMAN, N.J. - Six America East programs and 29 student-athletes have been recognized by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) for academic achievement during the 2008-09 academic year, the organization announced last week. The 35 total awards are up substantially from last year’s 24 honorees (4 teams, 20 student-athletes).

Binghamton and Stony Brook’s men's programs, along with the women's squads from University at Albany, University of Hartford, UMBC and Stony Brook all garnered the ITA All-Academic Team award.

The Bearcats’ Andreas Danielson, Sven Vloedgraven and Gilbert Wong were named Scholar-Athletes on the men's side, along with Boston U's James Bernstein, Hartford’s Aneil Bhalla and Rich Leiberman, UMBC’s Joe Adewumi and John Dixon and Stony Brook’s Yousseff Fassi-Fehri, Ivan Rummel and Ilan Shvartz.

Scholar-Athletes on the women's side included: Caitlin Crowley, Susan Ma, Laine Mackey and Kim Weltman from Albany; Danielle Abraham, Liz Corraro, Inayat Khosla, Cori Lefkowith, Petra Santini and Francine Whu from Boston University; Nicole Haynal, Kasey Michels and Margaret Sabatino from Hartford; Joy Adewumi, Cornelia Carapcea and Alice Chen from UMBC and Fanny Charliquart and Gayatri Krishnan from Stony Brook.

The ITA All-Academic Team award is given to any ITA program that has a cumulative team grade point average of 3.20 or above (on a 4.00 scale). All eligible student-athletes whose names appear on the NCAA/NAIA/NJCAA eligibility form and have competed in one or more varsity matches must average into the GPA for the current academic year (including fall 2006 and spring 2007).

In order to earn ITA Scholar-Athlete status a player must be a varsity letter winner and have a grade point average of at least 3.50 (on a 4.00 scale) for the current academic year. They also must have been enrolled at their present school for at least two semesters (including freshman thorough senior year).