SPARTANBURG, S.C. – ETSU’s Dimitri Badra has been named the Southern Conference Men’s Tennis Player of the Year for the third straight season, as the league announced its 2023 awards Wednesday. Furman’s Jerry Barton has been named the SoCon Freshman of the Year, while Chattanooga coach Chuck Merzbacher earned his second career SoCon Coach of the Year honor. The Citadel’s Hayden Shoemake and Wofford’s Robbie Young are co-winners of the Don Bunch/Buddy Hartsell Sportsmanship Award.
 
Postseason balloting was conducted by the league’s eight head coaches, who were not allowed to vote for their own student-athletes.
 
Badra, already one of just eight players in league history to be named the SoCon Player of the Year multiple times, now becomes just the third to earn the honor three times and the first to do it consecutively. He joins ETSU’s Yaser Zaatini and College of Charleston’s Or Dekel as the only three-time winners of the award and is the Bucs’ 11^th Player of the Year selection overall. The redshirt junior from Maracay, Venezuela, enters postseason play with a 14-5 singles mark at No. 1, including a 5-1 SoCon record, with his overall winning percentage of .737 leading the league at the top flight. In doubles play, he is 8-8 with a 5-2 mark in league action and has played at all three flights and with three different partners. Badra earned a pair of SoCon Player of the Week honors this season (Feb. 28, March 7), extending his SoCon record to 12 career selections. Badra earned first-team All-SoCon honors in singles and second-team distinction in doubles with partner Adam Nagoudi.
 
Barton is Furman’s seventh SoCon Freshman of the Year selection and the second straight. The rookie from Bedford, Texas, is 11-11 overall in singles play this season, including an 11-9 mark at No. 1 and a 6-1 SoCon record, with his only setback coming to Badra, the player of the year. In doubles play, Barton is 11-8 overall, including an 8-3 record at No. 2 and a 3-4 league mark. In addition to earning a spot on the All-Freshman team, Barton was a first-team All-SoCon selection in singles.
 
Merzbacher earned his second SoCon Coach of the Year citation since 2019 after leading the Mocs to a 16-6 overall record and a 6-1 SoCon mark. The sixth-year head coach led Chattanooga to its first regular-season SoCon crown since the league began recognizing regular-season titles in 1992 and the No. 1 seed in this week’s SoCon Men’s Tennis Championship. The 16 wins are UTC’s most under Merzbacher and the most since an 18-win 2005 campaign, while the 6-1 league record is the Mocs’ best since going 6-0 in 1989. Chattanooga had a trio of first-team All-SoCon selections in Kerim Hyatt (singles) and Peyton Gatti and Simon Labbe (doubles) and saw Gabriel Castillo Sanchez earn second-team singles honors and Hyatt and Kristof Kincses claim second-team doubles accolades. Cortland Grove earned All-Freshman Team honors for the Mocs.

Shoemake is The Citadel’s first winner of the Don Bunch/Buddy Hartsell Sportsmanship award since 2004 and the Bulldogs’ fifth overall. The junior from Centerton, Arkansas, also earned first-team All-SoCon honors in both singles and doubles this season, as he is 20-14 overall in singles, including a 14-14 mark at No. 1 in dual matches and a 3-3 ledger in league matches. Shoemake is 16-15 overall in doubles play, including a 13-12 dual mark and a 3-4 SoCon record. He and partner Sebastian Kamieniecki, with whom he earned first-team doubles honors, are 13-11 together and 10-8 in dual matches, all at No. 1.
 
Wofford’s Young is the Terriers’ third winner of the Buddy Hartsell Sportsmanship Award and the first since 2017. Young, a sophomore from Greenville, South Carolina, is 6-14 overall on the season in singles play at Nos. 2 and 3 and is 9-8 in doubles play, also at Nos. 2 and 3. Young went 3-3 in doubles play in league matches.
 
ETSU’s Thiago Pernas and Samford’s Maxwell Giddens rounded out the singles All-SoCon first team, while Giddens and Sandeep Mohandoss earned the final first-team doubles spot.
 
Mercer had a trio of second-team All-SoCon singles selections in Lucas Dini, Marceau Foulihoux and Samuel MacLeod, with Mohandoss and Mohammed Ali Bellalouna representing Samford on the squad. Foulihoux and Nemanja Stefanovic earned second-team doubles honors for Mercer to round out that team.
 
ETSU’s Pedro Cressoni, Furman’s Thomas Kennedy, Mercer’s Stefanovic and Samford’s Darcy Nicholls rounded out the All-Freshman Team.
 
The SoCon Men’s Tennis Championship begins Thursday at 8:30 a.m. at the Champions Club in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with all eight league teams vying for the title.
 
2023 Southern Conference Player of the Year
Dimitri Badra, R-Jr., ETSU
 
2023 Southern Conference Freshman of the Year
Jerry Barton, Furman
 
2023 Southern Conference Coach of the Year
Chuck Merzbacher, Chattanooga
 
2023 Southern Conference Don Bunch/Buddy Hartsell Sportsmanship Award
Hayden Shoemake, Jr., The Citadel
Robbie Young, So., Wofford
 
2023 All-Southern Conference Men’s Tennis
First team
Singles
Hayden Shoemake, The Citadel
Dimitri Badra, ETSU
Thiago Pernas, ETSU
Jerry Barton, Furman
Maxwell Giddens, Samford
Kerim Hyatt, Chattanooga
Doubles
Hayden Shoemake/Sebastian Kamieniecki, The Citadel
Sandeep Mohandoss/Maxwell Giddens, Samford
Peyton Gatti/Simon Labbe, Chattanooga
 
Second team
Singles
Lucas Dini, Mercer
Marceau Foulihoux, Mercer
Samuel MacLeod, Mercer
Mohammed Ali Bellalouna, Samford
Sandeep Mohandoss, Samford
Gabriel Castillo Sanchez, Chattanooga
Doubles
Dimitri Badra/Adam Nagoudi, ETSU
Marceau Foulihoux/Nemanja Stefanovic, Mercer
Kerim Hyatt/Kristof Kincses, Chattanooga
 
All-Freshman
Pedro Cressoni, ETSU
Jerry Barton, Furman
Thomas Kennedy, Furman
Nemanja Stefanovic, Mercer
Darcy Nicholls, Samford
Cortland Grove, Chattanooga