UGA Sports Communications
The Georgia women’s track and field team earned UGA its first team national championship at the NCAA Indoor Championships in College Station, Texas, on Saturday.
Powered by two national individual champions and nine scorers, the Lady Dawgs tallied a program record 61 points to finish in front of Arkansas (49), Kentucky (34) and Florida (32) in the team standings. This marks Georgia’s fifth straight top-three finish at the NCAA indoor meet, including the team’s runner-up finish in 2017.
This is the 43rd overall team titles for the University of Georgia Athletic Association, including the 30th by one of the Georgia women’s teams and the first for any team since women’s swimming and diving title in 2016.
The Georgia men completed the meet with their second-best point total in history (32, trailing their 35.5 from 2017) to take third. Florida (40) and USC (37) were the top two finishers.
Becoming just the second competitor in history to win three NCAA indoor women’s triple jump titles, senior Keturah Orji highlighted the day by traveling the eighth-longest distance in collegiate history of 46 feet, 10 inches to give Georgia its second NCAA individual title of the meet.
The Dawgs had 13 more scorers on Saturday:
- Junior Denzel Comenentia scored in his second event of the weekend, taking sixth in the weight throw.
- Freshman Johannes Erm and senior Karl Saluri combined to score seven points in the heptathlon.
- Senior Cejhae Greene and junior Kendal Williams sped to top-seven finishes in the 60m.
- Another Dawg pair, junior Keenon Laine and sophomore Darius Carbin, were back-to-back finishers in the high jump to finish in the top eight.
- Junior Kate Hall scored in her second event after flying across the line in the women’s 60m.
- Junior Michael Nicholls passed the competition by to score in the 60m hurdles.
- Freshman Tara Davis distinguished herself as a double scorer after scoring in the 60m hurdles in the meet’s second day.
- Freshman Lynna Irby clocked the second-best time of her career to add points in the 400m.
- Orji now owns all of the top eight marks on the collegiate all-time list with her win in the triple jump.
- Irby set up in the sixth lane of the 200m final and gave the Lady Dawgs’ extra cushion with a top-three finish in her second final.
Hall was the first Georgia team member to win a 2018 NCAA individual title after leading the charge on a historic 1-2-3 finish in the women’s long jump. In addition, Orji and Davis (long jump), Comenentia (shot put), sophomore Louisa Grauvogel (pentathlon) and sophomore Jessica Drop (5000m) all finished in one of the top eight scoring spots to score on Friday.
There were also a number of school records that fell. Irby topped her own school record in the 200m during the final, trimming .11 off her top time in Georgia’s last event of the meet. During Friday’s action, Hall set a school record in the long jump and 60m, Davis topped her own UGA record in the 60m hurdles and Irby matched her previous Lady Dawg all-time No. 1 time in the 200m. Also of note, Hall’s 7.98 in the 60m hurdle semifinalist topped the World Junior record.
No comments:
Post a Comment