Kupets Named Top Gymnast

Gymnastics

Georgias Courtney Kupets, the winningest gymnast in NCAA history, has been named the recipient of the 2009 Honda Sports Award as the nations top collegiate gymnast.

A senior from Athens, she also won the Honda Award in 2007 and was a finalist for it in 2006. In national balloting among 1,000 NCAA member schools, Kupets was voted over three other finalists Utahs Kristina Baskett, LSUs Ashleigh Clare-Kearney and Denvers Jessica Lopez.

She now is automatically nominated for the Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year Award. The Honda-Broderick Cup will be presented to the winner at a ceremony in New York in June.

After missing the second half of the 2008 season with an Achilles injury, Kupets was the nations most dynamic gymnast in 2009. She won the all-around, bars, beam and floor competitions at the NCAA Championship, giving her a record nine individual national titles in just three seasons. She also became the first gymnast in NCAA history to win a national title in each event.

Moreover, Kupets paced the Gym Dawgs to their fifth straight and 10th overall national championship.

Kupets earned five All-America honors in 2009, giving her the maximum of 15 for the three years in which she participated in the NCAAs. She was named the AAI National Senior, SEC and Southeast Regional Gymnast of the Year. Kupets recorded seven perfect 10.0s, including at least one in each event to become just the third Gym Dawg to accomplish that feat.

Kupets also is an academic standout for Georgia. She was named to the Fall Semester Athletic Directors Honor Roll, was chosen as Georgias recipient of the Boyd McWhorter Scholarship and won UGAs Marilyn Vincent Award as the senior female student-athlete with the highest grade point average. She has a 3.8 GPA in Housing.

Baseball

Georgia pitchers Trevor Holder and Dean Weaver were among 50 players named to the College Baseball Foundation’s Pitcher of the Year Award Watch List, it was announced Tuesday.

A senior from Birmingham, Ala., Holder is 7-2 with a 3.79 ERA this season and last weekend tied former Dawg Cris Carpenter for fourth all-time at Georgia with his 22nd career victory. His seven wins this year is tied for second most in the SEC.

A junior from Douglasville, Ga., Weaver is 1-0 with nine saves this year—tied for seventh on Georgia’s single season saves chart. Weaver has allowed just two earned runs in his last 13 appearances and 14.2 innings. He leads the SEC in saves in conference play and in games finished.