University of Georgia Athletics
University of Georgia
NCAA Championships
Georgia's Nikola Lomnicka Claims NCAA Hammer Title
June 21, 2010 | Track & Field
June 11, 2010
EUGENE, Ore. --- Georgia sophomore Nikola Lomnicka captured her first national title in the hammer throw to highlight the second day of the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Ore., on Thursday.
On the men's side, sophomore Brian Moore finished 13th in the javelin in his first trip to the NCAAs.
Southern Illinois (22) is leading the event on the women's side while the Lady Bulldogs are tied for sixth with 10 points. For the men, Kansas and Texas A&M (18) have taken the lead following two days of action.
"I'm happy that our program was able to add another national champion to the list," said head coach Wayne Norton. "Having elite people compete up to their maximum potential is always our goal and Nikola accomplished that today. We have had at least one NCAA champion in nine of the last 10 years so we continue to have elite people show up and perform. Nikola is only a sophomore so we hope she gets better and her performance is indicative of what I have been saying all year long. We are going in the right direction and developing our young talent so if we stay healthy and continue to recruit well, we are going to have a good two upcoming years. But this meet is not over yet. We have two days left and I think we the folks competing continue to perform like they have been doing, we will be fine."
With the sun shining for one of the first times over the first two days of competition, Lomnicka opened with a mark of 210 feet, 7 inches and that ended being enough to lock down her first national crown. The Nitra, Slovakia, native topped Virginia Tech's Dorotea Habazin, who came into the meet as the nation's leader, after Habazin posted a top effort of 210-2 after reaching the distance on her sixth and final attempt.
Lomnicka's brother, Virginia Tech's Marcel Lomnicky, will be battling Georgia senior Branislav Danis and the rest of the men's hammer field at 7 p.m. EDT on Friday as Lomnicky attempts to repeat as NCAA champion.
"I don't know what to say about winning yet, but I am very excited," said Lomnicka, who also won an SEC title this year in the event. "I felt good about my throws all day and I am glad to have won a national championship for Georgia. It would be awesome if my brother and I could both win this year. He told me what it would be like at this meet before we got here and his cheering for me in the crowd definitely helped me out a lot."
Lomnicka followed up her opening throw with a pair of fouls before launching the longest throw of the day (215-1) on her final attempt. This heave marked her longest throw since unleashing a career-best throw of 216-9 at the Florida Relays in early April.
This also marks the first NCAA title in the hammer for the Lady Bulldogs since Jenny Dahlgren, who set the collegiate record in the event (239-4) and still owns the NCAA meet record, cruised to back-to-back titles in 2006 and 2007. Lomnicka's NCAA championship is the first for the Georgia women since Dahlgren's '07 win and their 11th outdoor title in program history.
Just as Moore opened the second flight in the men's javelin, another line of showers came through Eugene and made it difficult on his entire flight. He opened with a mark of 221-3 but was unable to improve on his final two throws. Moore finished his first season with Georgia as the 2010 SEC champion and the runner-up at the NCAA East Preliminary Round.
Freshman Lucie Ondraschkova completed the second day of the heptathlon, which was only the second collegiate heptathlon of her career, in 15th place. She scored 5,303 points after racking up 5,467 at the conference meet to take fifth.
Ondraschkova opened her day by tying for 14th in the long jump with a top effort of 18-1. In the javelin, the Czech Republic native recorded a top throw of 112-7 for 14th place before wrapping up with an 800 time of 2:19.56, which was the eighth-best time in the competition.
Fellow freshman Maria Augutis made her NCAA debut in the triple jump. After hitting at least 42 feet during her last four consecutive meets, Augutis had a second jump measuring 38-9.75 to take 24th overall. She completes her first outdoor campaign with the Lady Bulldogs at the No. 5 spot on the all-time top-10 list.
Junior Cory Holman, who was the decathlon runner-up at the SEC meet and No. 2 on Georgia's all-time list after scoring 7,500 points, only made it through one event in the decathlon on Thursday before suffering an injury that ended his competition.
Holman started the day with an 11.12 for eighth place in the 100. While warming up for the long jump shortly after, the Huber Heights, Ohio, native suffered a hamstring injury and had to pull out of the competition. This was Holman's first trip to the NCAA outdoor meet after transferring from Rend Lake College.
Action begins on Friday with the final five events of the decathlon, starting with the 110 hurdles, at 1 p.m. EDT for Holman. Senior Kat Majester (pole vault - 7 p.m.), Danis (hammer throw - 7 p.m.) and sophomore Aaron Evans (800 finals - 8:40 p.m.) will also be competing in finals of their events on Friday.
Live results and recaps from each day of the NCAA Outdoor Championships will be located here on georgiadogs.com.
