Men’s Tennis named All-Academic Team, three Polar Bears earn Scholar Athlete honors from ITA

By Wes Mayberry

| 2023 NCAA Division III ITA Men's Scholar Athletes (.pdf) | 2023 NCAA Division III ITA Men's All-Academic Teams (.pdf) |

ADA — Three members of the Ohio Northern men's tennis team were named Scholar Athletes for 2023 by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association.

Junior electrical engineering major Isaac Spar (Ada), sophomore computer engineering major Sam Sran (Punjab, India/St. Stephens and Gian Jyoti Global) and sophomore biology major Drew Swisher (Findlay) were among 1,012 NCAA Division III student-athletes to be named an ITA Scholar Athlete this season.

To be eligible for the award, a student-athlete must have a GPA of at least 3.5 on a 4.0 scale for the current academic year.

Spar now has three such accolades in his career, and Sran and Swisher own two each.

Northern also earned the ITA All-Academic Team award, which is given to teams with a cumulative GPA of at least 3.2 on a 4.0 scale for the current academic year. A total of 125 Division III men's tennis programs earned this distinction for 2023.

Led by first-year head coach Sean Swisher, who was named the Ohio Athletic Conference Coach of the Year, the Polar Bears finished the 2022-23 season at 13-8 overall, including a 5-1 mark in the OAC.

Northern won a second straight OAC Regular Season championship and OAC Tournament title en route to earning a berth in the NCAA Division III Tournament for the second consecutive season.