IIAC Champion Garcia Named Athlete of the Week
Sep 24, 2012 | J.Crane
CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA - The Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (IIAC) announced today that Coe College tennis players Michelle Schupbach and Tai Lucero and University of Dubuque tennis player Nick Garcia (Leimen, Germany / Heidelberg) have been named IIAC Athletes of the Week for the week ending Sunday, Sept. 23, 2012. The Conference also recognized 13 Performers of the Week across the league's eight fall championship sports and men’s tennis, which held its fall individual tournaments last weekend.
Garcia, a senior, won the Flight A singles title and, with Demetrius Johnson (Brown Deer, Wis./Brown Deer), took third in Flight A doubles at the 2012 Iowa Conference Men’s Tennis Individual Tournament. After completing only his first-round singles match Friday due to inclement weather, Garcia won four singles matches Saturday and captured the crown with an 8-1 win over Coe’s Riley Galbraith in the championship match. He and Johnson went 3-1 in the Flight A doubles draw, which was contested almost entirely on Saturday as well, posting 8-3 victories in their first two matches before falling to Luther’s Ramesh Karki and Quinn Foley, 8-4, in the semifinals. Garcia and Johnson received a walkover against Luther’s Nick Mozena and James Ayer in the third-place match.
Garcia's win gave Dubuque its first top-flight IIAC singles champion since Jeff Benson went back-to-back in 1979 and 1980. He also became the first Flight A/No. 1 singles champion since 1998 (Spencer Cox, Central) to represent a school other than Coe or Luther. A four-time Flight A semifinalist, Garcia was second in both the spring and fall tournaments in 2010 and was fourth a year ago. The third-place doubles finish was the second in as many years for Garcia and Johnson.
UP NEXT: The Spartans will compete in the ITA Midwest Regionals in St. Paul, Minn. on September 28th through the 30th.
The complete IIAC Athlete of the Week release can be found at:
http://www.iowaconference.com/news/2012/9/24/IIAC_0924120721.aspx
