For the second year in a row, the Georgia women’s track and field team came up just one point short of a NCAA Outdoor Championships on Saturday.
Last year, the Lady Bulldogs came just 1.8 points short of the national title to Oregon. This year, it was Southern California that stole the title away.
After the men’s team won the national title the day before, Georgia headed into Saturday in fourth place at 14 points.
By the end of the day, the Lady Bulldogs tallied 38 points from five scorers.
Senior Keturah Orji finished her decorated career with her fourth NCAA outdoor triple jump title. Her second attempt of 46-3/4 secured her second national title at this year’s championship and capped off one of the most dominant careers in the history of the sport.
Orji’s efforts in both the triple and long jump gave Georgia a total of 20 points.
On the track, freshman Lynna Irby sped away to a first place finish in the 400-meter. Irby’s time of 49.80 was a personal best, a new meet record, and ranks second on the current world list.
Irby became only the third athlete to ever run the 400 below 50 seconds in NCAA history. She provided Georgia with 16 points after also finishing third in the 200 with a time of 22.92.
Other scorers for Georgia included sophomore Louisa Grauvogel’s second place finish in the heptathlon. With 6,074 points, Grauvogel set three personal bests over the seven events.
Senior Tatiana Gusin completed her Georgia career with a 5-10 clearance on her second attempt in the high jump. Gusin finished seventh overall this year after being NCAA runner-ups in the 2017 indoor and outdoor championships and in the 2016 indoor championship.
Wrapping up the scorers for Georgia, sophomore Jessica Drop took seventh in the 5000 and scored the final points on the day. Her time of 15 minutes 46.39 seconds was the first time the cross country All-American competed at the NCAA Outdoor Championships.
After accumulating 52 points from seven scorers over the past three days, Georgia was forced to wait for the rest of the competition to conclude. Needing a win in the final event, USC took first place in the women’s 4x400 meter relay to stun the Lady Bulldogs and muster up a meet total of 53 points.
The close finish left USC in first with 53, Georgia in second with 52, and Stanford in third with 51.
The national championship would’ve given Georgia national titles for both the men’s and women’s side at this year’s outdoor championships. It would’ve also completed the sweep of winning both the indoor and outdoor NCAA championships for the Lady Bulldogs.
Despite history seeming to repeat itself once again, the Lady Bulldogs will still have an indoor national championship to look back on for this season.
