The UGA track and field teams compete in their second outdoor meet of the year at the Yellow Jacket Invitational in Atlanta on Friday and Saturday.
Georgia Tech’s home meet starts with four events on Friday. The women’s hammer throw followed by the men’s hammer starts at 6 p.m. The women’s 5000-meter run followed by the men’s 5000m is slated to begin at 8:30 p.m.
On Saturday, the men’s shot put and women’s javelin start the second day at 10:30 a.m. The first event on the track is the 4x100m relays starting at 12:30 p.m.
Who Is Traveling?: Morgan Ainslie, Devon Artis, Shelby Ashe, Natalie Bordes, Allie Castro, Asianna Covington, Anna Gandolfo, Sarah Gardner, Kingsley Green, Ashley Henry, Lauren Hovis, Addy Lippitt, Torrenzia Lyles, Anna Machovec, Hayden Merrick, Kate Northrop, Ruthie Powell, Catelyn Schmiedebusch, Katie Stone and Grace Tavani will represent the Lady Bulldogs.
Denzel Comenentia, Henry Dwyer, Terrell Estime, Ayrian Evans, Maurice Freeman, Michael Giuliano, Reggie Glover, Jimmy Hicks, Raytez Jenkins, Ashinia Miller, Jon Moses, Daniel Navarro, Jon Okoye, Alex Poursanidis, Jonathan Raines, Joe Kimura Smith and Derrick White Jr. are inked in to compete for the Bulldog men.
Who Is The Competition?: The Bulldogs will be joined by Auburn, Clemson, East Tennessee State, Furman, Georgia State, Georgia Tech, Kennesaw State, Kent State, Middle Tennessee State, South Carolina, UNC-Ashville, Western Carolina, Notre Dame, Youngstown State and Grinnell in Atlanta.
Last Weekend: The Bulldogs opened their outdoor season at home last weekend during the Georgia Relays. The men and women combined for 18 wins. Senior Ashinia Miller highlighted the meet by taking over the national lead in the shot put with a career-best toss of 65 feet, 1 1Ž2 inches while his true freshman training partner, Denzel Comenentia, shot to No. 7 on the national list after opening in the hammer with a mark of 221-1.
Kyprianou’s Comments: “The team should have an opportunity to sharpen their skills this weekend against a little tougher competition from Division I schools,” said Georgia head coach Petros Kyprianou. “As we progress to the outdoor season, we are hungry for more NCAA-caliber student-athletes to step up and lead the way. This meet is a good opportunity for our sprinters and throwers to get some NCAA marks and our distance runners to show their improvement.”
Georgia has a pair of home meets left on its schedule and the postseason, starting with the Southeastern Conference Championships in Tuscaloosa, Ala., does not arrive until the second week of May. The season culminates with the NCAA Championships in Eugene, Ore., on June 8-11.
“It is still very early in the outdoor season and the majority of our indoor NCAA scorers will open up at the Bulldog Decathlon and Heptathlon (April 6-7) or the Spec Towns Invitational (April 8-9) on our home track in a couple of weeks,” said Kyprianou.
FLASHBACK – 2015 Yellow Jacket Invite: Georgia had five outright winners at last year’s meet. Junior Ayrian Evans won the 400m (47.18) and is returning to Atlanta this weekend. Senior Jamario Calhoun finished first in the 200m (20.93) and senior Victoria Coppage crossed the line first in the 5000m (17:34.30). However, Calhoun and Coppage are not traveling to the meet. Also, departed seniors Charles Grethen (800m) and Drew Branch (400m hurdles) also earned first-place honors in 2015.
Easing Into Outdoors: The Bulldogs qualified a combined 11 men and women for this year’s NCAA Indoor Championships, and only two of those will have competed in the first two outdoor meets. Miller and Comenentia battled at the Georgia Relays in Athens and will return to action on Georgia Tech’s track.
Maicel Uibo (heptathlon), Karl Saluri (heptathlon), Chanice Porter (long jump, high jump) and Mady Fagan (high jump) last competed at Nationals in Birmingham, Ala., and will returning to action later this season. Tatiana Gusin (high jump) is redshirting the outdoor season while Garrett Scantling (heptathlon) and Xenia Rahn (pentathlon) used their final season of eligibility indoors.
Kendell Williams and Keturah Orji, who both won NCAA indoor titles, continued their indoor competition at the World Indoor Championships in Portland, Ore., last weekend. Getting invitations to compete for Team USA, Orji bettered her school record in the triple jump to 46-4.75 for fourth place. Williams scored 4,586 points for sixth place in the pentathlon.
Where To Find Results, News: Live stats and full results from this weekend’s Yellow Jacket Invite will be posted at georgiadogs.com.
Updates from Georgia’s track and field and cross country program can always be found on Twitter/Instagram (@UGATrack).