[su_spacer size=”40″] Orji flew 46 feet, 4 ¼ inches on her sixth and final jump to sweep this year’s SEC meets, improve her school record, move to No .3 on the 2015 world list and better her spot as the NCAA leader in the triple jump.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Thanks in part to Orji’s win, the Lady Bulldogs finished sixth with 64 points on a day that was stalled several times with lightning delays. Arkansas won the team title with 127.50 points while Texas A&M (104), Kentucky (99), LSU (84) and Florida (83) made up the top five.
[su_spacer size=”40″] The Georgia men also finished with two SEC individual champions as junior Maicel Uibo won his third straight decathlon crown and sophomore Alex Poursanidis locked down his second consecutive men’s hammer throw title. The Bulldogs finished fifth with 71.50 points as Florida (130.50) won the men’s championship. Texas A&M (95) and Arkansas (95) tied for second and LSU (92) was fourth.
[su_spacer size=”40″] “Overall, I thought this was a really good meet for us,” said Bulldog head coach Wayne Norton. “The goal was to be in the top five and we did it with one team and just missed it with the other. I’m happy with what we did. I think we competed a lot better on day three than we did on even day two. We may have had more success on day two, but we had to work harder to get what we got today.
[su_spacer size=”40″] “We always have to celebrate our champions and the women’s triple jump was outstanding for us. The performance by Keturah kind of puts her in a whole different class now. Drew Branch in the 400 hurdles was also outstanding and I thought both relay teams ended the meet for us very well. The men ran a very competitive time against some of the best teams in the country and scored. We need to do that again in two weeks so we can qualify for Nationals with that group. The women had a very workman-like performance and finished with their best time in a long time. That team is a team under construction and it is important to our whole team that we continue to build that squad up.
[su_spacer size=”40″] “Brandon Lord also did his usual strong performance. So coming out of this meet and headed to NCAA Prelims, we are in very good shape and have a chance to be a Nationals team that can score and finish in the top five on the men and women’s sides. That’s been the goal all year so when you look at it like that, we are right where we need to be.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Orji won the Lady Bulldogs’ their first SEC outdoor triple jump title since Maria Augutis finished first in 2011 with Georgia hosting the meet. Orji, who was also third in the long jump on Friday, passed her former school record of 45-2.25 by more than a foot.
[su_spacer size=”40″] On the track, senior Drew Branch made the best out of a driving rain and sped to a career-best 400-meter hurdles time of 49.53. Branch’s finish, which is third on Georgia’s all-time top-10 list and best for the Bulldogs since 2008, gave him a second-place finish for the second year in a row. This time is the nation’s fifth best this year.
[su_spacer size=”40″] The 2013 NCAA women’s javelin champion, Georgia junior Freya Jones, left the facility with her top SEC finish in history. Jones answered a second throw of 175-11 with a season-best toss of 176-9 to finish second. Jones, who was third in 2013 and 2014, fell to LSU’s Rebekah Wales (177-0) by three inches.
[su_spacer size=”40″] While he trains for the coming 10,000 at the NCAA Prelims, senior Brandon Lord ran in his final SEC meet and finished third in the 5000. Second in the event last year, the 2014 SEC 10,000 champion ran a 14:01.02 to be eight seconds behind the runner-up and eight seconds in front of the fourth-place competitor.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Branch returned to the track in the 4×400 relay with Ayrian Evans, Raytez Jenkins and Jamario Calhoun and registered the third-best time in school history for fifth place. The Bulldogs ran a 3:04.37 to bump the time UGA ran at last year’s NCAA Prelims to fourth (Branch and Evans were also on that squad).
[su_spacer size=”40″] Senior Charles Grethen managed to score in the 800 finals for the fourth time in his career after completing his two laps on a saturated track. Grethen ran a 1:48.61 to take seventh and score two points for the Bulldogs. He ran a 1:47.53 during the prelims as he will now try and qualify for the NCAA Championships in two weeks.
[su_spacer size=”40″] The Bulldogs had a pair of scorers in the men’s discus as senior Nick Vena and junior Ashinia Miller locked down the seventh and eighth scoring spots. Vena, who was the runner-up in the shot put earlier in the meet, watched his second attempt travel a season-best distance of 173-3. Miller also had his longest throw of 2015 at 172-1 to add one more point to Georgia’s total.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Senior Garrett Scantling, who is ranked second nationally in the decathlon behind Uibo, competed in both the open pole vault and javelin at SECs. Scantling cleared a career-best height of 16-7.50 to tie for seventh in the pole vault on Saturday. He was 16th in the javelin on Thursday with a toss of 196 feet.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Scantling and Uibo do not have to compete at the NCAA Prelims in two weeks because they are in the multi-events and ranked in the top 24 nationally.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Also of note, Jenkins, Reggie Glover, Evans and Calhoun clocked a season-best time of 40.09 to finish one spot out of scoring in ninth.
[su_spacer size=”40″] To conclude the meet, the Lady Bulldog quartet of Ashley Henry, Devon Artis, Katie Stone and Natalie Bordes ran a 3:40.92 in the 4×400 relay to finish 12th. This is the best time for the Georgia women in more than six years.
[su_spacer size=”40″] ESPNU will air the SEC Championships as part of a two-hour show on May 21 beginning at 8 p.m. The broadcast talent includes Dwight Stones (play-by-play), Larry Rawson (analyst) and Jill Montgomery (reporter).
[su_spacer size=”40″] This marks the first of three postseason meets for the Bulldogs. Georgia travels to Jacksonville, Fla., for the NCAA East Prelims on May 28-30 and then to Eugene, Ore., for the NCAA Championships on June 10-13.