Track Set To Begin NCAA Postseason At East Prelims

Wednesday, May 26

Jacksonville, Fla.

All Day

University of Georgia

NCAA East Regional

Jessica Drop, Anna Marian Block, Amber Tanner

May 25, 2021 | Track & Field

Meet Schedule Men's Heat Sheets Women's Heat Sheets

ATHENS, Ga. --- The Georgia track and field teams traveled to Jacksonville, Fla., on Monday in preparation for the NCAA East Prelims, which will run at North Florida's facility from Wednesday through Saturday.

The sixth-ranked Georgia women and the 15^th-ranked Bulldog men took a combined 26 team members to compete and have a total of 29 entries for the meet.  There are 48 competitors from the East Region in every individual event and 24 in the relays.

The NCAA West Prelims will be running simultaneously in College Station, Texas, with the same format. The top 12 in each event from both regions will advance to the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Ore, on June 9-12.

Four Bulldogs ranked in the nation's top five in the multi-events earned the right to skip the Prelims by automatically qualifying for the NCAA Championships (Anna Hall, Asya Reynolds – heptathlon; Karel Tilga, Kyle Garland – decathlon).  However, Hall will not compete in Eugene in the heptathlon but will rather try to qualify in both the open high jump and long jump in Jacksonville.

Garland will also not be in the combined event field in Oregon and will instead attempt to punch his ticket in the 110-meter hurdles and long jump this week.  Tilga is the country's top-ranked decathlete while Reynolds is ranked fifth in the heptathlon nationally.

When Do The Bulldogs Start Competition? Similar to the NCAA Championships, this meet is set up where one gender competes one day and then the other gender competes the next, and that pattern is followed all four days.  Junior Alencar Pereira will begin the meet for the Bulldogs in the hammer throw on Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. ET.  The first event on the track for the Georgia men will be Garland lining up in the opening round of the 110m hurdles at 6 p.m.

The women's first day will be on Thursday.  Freshman Charlotte Williams will be in the hammer field at 1:30 p.m. while junior Imani Carothers is slated to start in the 100m hurdles' opening round at 6 p.m.

Temperatures are expected to be in the mid 90s with partly cloudy to mostly sunny skies all four days.  The winds are predicted to hover around 10 miles an hour each competition day.

Live Results: For live results between Wednesday and Saturday, please click on: http://gado.gs/72u

Live Stream: The NCAA East Prelims will be live streamed by ESPN all four days.

Here are the link for each day:
Day 1 (Wednesday) - http://gado.gs/72w
Day 2 (Thursday) - http://gado.gs/72y
Day 3 (Friday) - http://gado.gs/730
Day 4 (Saturday) – http://gado.gs/732

Kyprianou's Comments: "We are very excited to go down to Jacksonville and go through step one of our mission, which is capitalizing on our hard work this season when we arrive in Eugene," said head coach Petros Kyprianou. "This meet serves as a qualifying process and there are no winners or losers and that makes it a tricky situation for ultra-competitive teams.  We have to stay focused and tune in to this process as we go through those qualifying rounds.  I'm expecting more than 80 percent of this group to advance to Oregon and I'm very eager to see the other 15-20 percent punch their ticket as a result of the desire to compete for a championship in a few weeks.  Our student-athletes are well tuned in and know what our teams' motto and focus are so I'm very excited to see them take an opportunity for NCAA glory.  Go Dawgs!"

What Bulldogs Are Competing: The Lady Bulldogs have qualified the following competitors: graduate transfer Julia Hall, seniors Jessica Drop, Destiny Jackson, Marie-Therese Obst, Kayla Smith, Amber Tanner, Chelsea Zoller, junior Titiana Marsh, sophomores Anna Marian Block, Jasmine Moore, Shelby Tyler, along with the aforementioned Anna Hall, Reynolds, Williams and Carothers.

The Bulldog men will be traveling this group: graduate transfer Jonathan Tharaldsen, senior Delano Dunkley, juniors Sam Bowers, Elija Godwin, Labo Oke, sophomores Gavin Beverage, Matthew Boling, Caleb Cavanaugh and freshman Arian Smith, in addition to the group already listed of Garland and Pereira.

Drop Rises To The Top: Jessica Drop was named the 2020-21 Brad Davis Southeastern Conference Community Service Female Leader of the Year, according to a league announcement last week.

Drop, a Durham, Conn., native, was chosen by a committee of Faculty Athletics Representatives from SEC universities and will receive a $10,000 post-graduate scholarship, provided by the SEC.  The six-time scoring All-American in indoor/outdoor track and cross country, 2020 SEC Scholar-Athlete of the Year and 2019 SEC Community Service Team member is the seventh Bulldog to win the award (third from track and field) and first since football's Chris Conley (currently with the Houston Texans) won it in 2015.
Graduates Aiming To Extend Season: Seven Bulldogs who will be competing at the NCAA East Prelims officially earned a degree from UGA during the second weekend of May, which happened to be when most of them were competing at the SEC Championships.  Kayla Smith (Pole vault; Master's in Nonprofit Management & Leadership), Labo Oke (Triple jump; Biochemistry, Molecular Biology), Jessica Drop (5000m, 10,000m; Cellular Biology), Julia Hall (800m, 4x400m relay; Master's in Marketing Research), Marie-Therese Obst (Javelin; Criminal Justice), Chelsea Zoller (400mH, 4x400m relay; Finance, Management) and Amber Tanner (800m, 4x400m relay; Master's Journalism & Mass Communication) all earned an undergraduate or graduate degree this spring and are slated to line up in Jacksonville.
FLASHBACK: 2019 NCAA East Prelims: The 2020 collegiate outdoor track and field season was canceled because of the ongoing pandemic.  With the eventual NCAA decathlon champion Johannes Erm and heptathlete Sterling Lester already qualified in the combined events in 2019, Georgia left that year's NCAA East Prelims with 12 additional qualifiers.

Here were the qualifiers out of the 2019 NCAA East Prelims:

Denzel Comenentia won the shot put, was third in the hammer and sixth in the discus to qualify in three events for the Bulldogs.
Keenon Laine and Darius Carbin each cleared 7 feet, 2 ¼ inches to put a pair of Bulldog high jumpers through the meet.
Smith tied with the best mark of 13-8.25 in the pole vault to earn her return to the NCAA Championships.
Marsh traveled 43-7.25 to be the seventh qualifier in the triple jump.
Drop finished her 12.5 laps in 16:17.47 to take eighth in the 5000m.
Sakari Famous reached a height of 5-8.75 in the high jump to earn an invite to the final meet.
Michael Nicholls finished the 110m hurdles in 13.61 and was ninth in the qualifying round.
Aliyah Whisby had a top mark of 19-11.50 to take ninth in the long jump and advance.
Tanner snuck in with the 12^th and final spot in the 800m after running a 2:06.14.

A Glimpse From The Dogs' Last Action: The Bulldogs started the postseason at the SEC Championships in College Station, Texas, on May 13-15.

Here is a breakdown of Georgia's scorers from the Aggies' campus:

Moore wasted no time in the triple jump, soaring an Olympic standard distance of 47-2.50 on her first try to improve her No. 2 spot in both the Bulldog record books and current NCAA list and capturing her first league outdoor title.
Obst won her first SEC javelin title to stay undefeated (6-0) this year with an opening throw of 187-11.
Tanner captured the 2020 SEC indoor title and then collected her first conference outdoor crown this year after leaving the 800m field behind with a 2:20.94.
Already the back-to-back SEC heptathlon champion indoors, Garland turned his first collegiate decathlon into a championship with 8,196 points.
Smith, Godwin, Dunkley and Boling combined to shatter the school record and take second in the 4x100m relay with a 39.02.
Boling sped to a 9.97 (personal record for a wind-aided time) to collect a silver medal in the 100m.
Anna Hall, who is ranked second nationally in the heptathlon, was runner-up to the national leader with 6,117 points.
Godwin obliterated the 400m school record that dated back to 1987 with a 44.61 for third place.
Boling erased a 42-year-old school record with a wind-legal 20.06 that earned him third place in the 200m.
Reynolds exploded for a career-best 5,922 points to earn a bronze medal in the heptathlon.
Moore added six more points with a third-place finish in the long jump (21-9.50).
Two weeks after she set a school record at her final home meet, Smith bettered that No. 1 UGA mark of 14-8.75 for fourth place in the pole vault.
Marsh worked up to a wind-aided mark of 45-4.50 to earn fourth place in the triple jump.
Tharaldsen competed at his first SEC outdoor meet and was fifth in the shot put (61-10.25).
Training through the meet, Tilga finished sixth in the javelin after his top attempt traveled 217-1.
Pereira battled at his first SEC Outdoor Championships and posted a personal record of 219-4 in the hammer for seventh-place honors.
At his first collegiate meet, Smith scored in the 100m with a wind-aided 10.18.
Block completed her two laps in 2:12.20 to take eighth in the 800m final.
Zoller, Julia Hall, Jackson and Amber finished the meet with an eighth-place finish in the 4x400m relay (3:37.39).

Results and recaps from the NCAA East Prelims will be found at georgiadogs.com. News and updates from Georgia's track and field and cross country teams are always located on Twitter/Instagram at @UGATrack.