NEW ORLEANS — Samir Chikhaoui and Gabriel Niculescu, members of the Xavier University of Louisiana men's tennis team, have been named to the College Sports Information Directors of America Google Cloud Academic All-District® 2 NAIA at-large team for 2018-19.
Chikhaoui, a junior from Lille, France, and Niculescu, a senior from Bucharest, Romania, are the third and fourth Gold Rush tennis players to be named Academic All-District and the first since Karan Salwan in 2016-17.
The Google Cloud Academic All-District award recognizes student-athletes for outstanding achievements in the classroom as well as in competition. Nominees must be a starter or important reserve with at least a 3.30 cumulative GPA on a 4.0 scale. They also must have completed at least one full calendar year at their current institution and reached sophomore athletic eligibility.
District 2 consists of NAIA members in Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana and Tennessee.
Chikhaoui and Niculescu are the only males from the NAIA's Gulf Coast Athletic Conference or an HBCU (Historically Black College or University) to make an at-large Academic All-District® team this year. The only other Louisiana student-athlete on a men's at-large team is swimmer Alarii Levreault-Lopez of LSU in NCAA Division I.
First-team Academic All-District® members advance to the Academic All-America® ballot. The Academic All-America® NAIA team will be announced June 18.
During the past 11 years, XULA has produced 23 Academic All-District® selections, all but one on the first team.
Ed Cassiere, Assistant Athletics Director for Communications
Department of Athletics & Recreation
XAVIER UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA
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