Irvine Valley star tennis players Nick Grove and Luciano Pardo recently added to their list of awards for the 2024 season.
The Intercollegiate Tennis Association ("ITA") announced the 2024 ITA Collegiate All-Star Team.
The ITA Collegiate All-Star Team recognition honors the top student-athletes of the 2023-2024 season across all divisions of college tennis.
The NCAA Division I recognition features the nation's top-ranked men's and women's players from the year-end ITA Collegiate Tennis Rankings, in addition to the winner of the ITA National Fall Championships as well as the finalist and runner-up of the NCAA Tennis Championships in singles and doubles.
The NCAA Division II recognition features the top-ranked men's and women's players from the year-end ITA Collegiate Tennis Rankings, while the NCAA Division III recognition consists of the National Champions of the singles and doubles at the NCAA Tennis Championships.
The freshmen doubles duo defeated Glendale's Adam Ridaoui and Lance Morgan, 7-5, 6-7, 7-5, in the final at Libbey Park to win the 3C2A state tite in April.
Grove, IVC's top singles player, also reached the semifinals in singles.
Grove and Pardo, the top team out of the Orange Empire Conference, helped IVC finish with a team record of 11-2 overall and 8-0 to win the conference.
Irvine Valley, as a team, reached the So. Cal. Regional semifinals as a team before losing, 5-2, to Glendale.
The duo of Grove and Pardo had tons of great moments over the weekend in singles and doubles at Ojai.
In singles play, Grove reached the semifinals.
In doubles for IVC, Grove and Pardo got into the final with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Gavin Sonntag and Enrique Silveira from American River before taking down Ridaoui and Morgan in the championship match in three sets.
Grove and Pardo join the likes of Javier Callejo (state singles champion in 2016 and 2017), Bruno Figlia and Scott Paz (state doubles champions in 2016), Valentin Baize and Maxime Rumeau (state doubles champions in 2015) and Arthur Bellegy (state singles champion in 2022) and doubles champion with Kiichi Ishida also in 2022 as part of a special group of IVC men's tennis players to win titles at Ojai.
The criteria for ITA All-American recognition was finishing in the Top Ten of the final ITA National Singles Rankings and Top Five in the final ITA Doubles Rankings.
IVC as a team finished third in the state.
The National Rankings consist of the Top 20 Team Rankings, Top 75 Singles Rankings, and Top 50 Doubles Rankings.
IVC ended with a record of 11-2 overall and went 8-0 in the Orange Empire Conference to win the title.
Grove and Pardo had already been named All-Americans.
