(Photo by John Kelley)
[su_spacer size=”40″] Head coach Wayne Norton was named the South Region Women’s Coach while associate head coach Petros Kyprianou was named the region’s Men’s Assistant Coach. Williams also earned South Region Women’s Field Athlete of the Year honors.
[su_spacer size=”40″] In 2014, Norton garnered South Region Women’s Coach of the Year outdoors honors. Kyprianou swept the indoor and outdoor South Region Women’s Assistant Coach of the Year awards last year and was named the Indoor National Women’s Assistant Coach of the Year as well.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Williams was voted as the 2014 South Region Women’s Field Athlete of the Year outdoors before earning the Women’s National Field Athlete of the Year award last year.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Norton, in his 16th year as head coach and 26th with the program, led the Lady Bulldogs to program’s first No. 1 national ranking and are currently sitting second heading into the NCAA Championships. Five team members go into NCAAs ranked in the top six in seven events, including country’s leading marks in the pentathlon, triple jump and high jump. An American Junior record in the triple jump, a No. 2 all-time collegiate pentathlon score (top non-altitude score all-time), SEC meet record in the high jump and two school records were all part of a big year for the Georgia women.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Norton will lead 13 team members – seven women and six men – to compete in eight events at the NCAA Championships in Fayetteville, Ark., on March 13-14.
[su_spacer size=”40″] In his seventh year of coaching Georgia’s jumps, combined events and pole vault, Kyprianou’s athletes scored 24 out of the Bulldogs’ 46 total team points at the SEC meet with a 1-2-3 sweep in the heptathlon. Leading that charge was SEC champion and SEC meet record-holder in Garrett Scantling, who won with a collegiate-leading 6035 points. Fellow junior Maicel Uibo also finished with 5909 points for the No. 2 mark in the NCAA this year.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Williams, a native of Marietta, Ga., crept dangerously close to topping her own collegiate record in the pentathlon after scoring 4,609 points to win at the McCravy Memorial in Lexington, Ky., on January 23. She moved to No. 2 on the all-time collegiate list (No. 1 non-altitude collegiate score) behind her 4,635 set last year and locked down her second mark on the all-time U.S. top-10 list.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Williams won her first SEC indoor title after scoring 4,519 points to win the pentathlon in Lexington on February 27. She leads the national rankings in the pentathlon by nearly 200 point, is ranked third nationally with a mark of 21 feet, 5 ½ inches in the long jump and is tied for eighth in the high jump rankings with a clearance of 6-0.75 in the high jump.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Williams competes in the pentathlon at the NCAA Championships on March 14 starting at 12:30 p.m. ET.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Williams and her freshman teammate Keturah Orji were also included this week on The Bowerman Trophy Pre-NCAA Indoor Championships Watch List.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Live and full results and a recap from the coming NCAA Indoor Championships and all Georgia meets will be located at georgiadogs.com. Updates from this meet and throughout the season will be posted on Twitter at @UGA_XCTF.