Trio of Wildcats Earn Academic All-Big 12 Honors - Kansas State Official Athletic Site

Trio of Wildcats Earn Academic All-Big 12 Honors

IRVING, Texas Three Kansas State Wildcats were among the 63 student-athletes named to the 2007 Academic All-Big 12 Tennis teams announced by the league office on Tuesday.

Katerina Kudlackova and Viviana Yrureta were named to the first team and Olga Klimova earned second team honors. It was the first time each of the athletes has been named to the Academic All-Big 12 team, but all three were named on the Big 12 Commissioner’s Honor Roll in the fall semester.

“We’re very proud of the academic performance of Vivi, Olga and Katka and what that means for our team and K-State,” Kansas State head coach Steve Bietau said.

Nominated by each institution’s director of student-athlete support services and the media relations offices, the Big 12 women had 32 first team recipients and 12 student-athletes on the second team. First team members consist of those who have maintained a 3.20 or better GPA, and the second team are those who have a 3.00 to 3.19 GPA.

Kudlackova is a sophomore from Cesko Trebova, Czech Repulic, majoring in psychology and earned the award in her first year of eligibility along with Viviana Yrureta, a junior from Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela, majoring in marketing. Freshmen and transfer students are not eligible for the award in their first year of competition.

Klimova, a junior from Brno, Czech Republic, earned second team honors as a psychology major.

Tereza Prochazkova, a junior from Brno, Czech Republic, majoring in management information systems, qualified academically but didn’t meet the competition requirements. To qualify student-athletes must maintain a 3.00 GPA or higher either cumulative or the two previous semesters and must have participated in 60 percent of his/her team’s scheduled contests.

K-State will compete on Thursday in the opening round of the Big 12 Championships at the Plaza Tennis Courts in downtown Kansas City, Mo., but were awaiting the conclusion of a make-up match between Texas Tech and Nebraska to determine final pairings.