The Red and Black

Issue date: 3/20/09 Section: Sports

Media Credit: DANIEL SHIREY Georgia senior Courtney Kupets waves to the crows after winning the all-around title at the SEC Championships Saturday in Nashville, Tenn. [Click to enlarge]

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Head coach Suzanne Yoculan said it was "like she had wings on."

But Gym Dogs senior Courtney Kupets, and the newly crowned 2009 SEC Athlete of the Year, wasn't so sure.

"We always have a thing at the pool where Grace [Taylor] and Abby [Stack] draw wings on everyone's backs and I just bought a shirt with wings on it, so maybe that's what it was," Kupets said.

Wings or not, Kupets dominated the 2009 SEC Championship as she had in each and every other meet this season in her return from a torn Achilles tendon.

She garnered four SEC Gymnast of the Week awards, including the first three weeks of the season. She swept the individual awards in the SEC Championships as she either won or tied for first on each apparatus and won the all-around title by .250 margin over Alabama's Morgan Dennis.

But when asked if she would give away all the individual accolades for the team title there was no mistaking her answer.

"Definitely."

Kupets became the sixth Georgia gymnast to earn the conference's Athlete of the Year award, and the first since Katie Heenan in 2007, which is ironically also the last time Georgia failed to win the SEC title.

"It means a lot," Kupets said. "The athlete of the year is something that you perform yourself and is something that you can control. It's something that you are given and for people to recognize me like that is awesome."

Georgia won three of the four league awards as in addition to Kupets, Taylor was named SEC Scholar-Athlete of the Year and, in her 26th and final season at the helm of the Georgia gymnastics program, Yoculan was named the league's Coach of the Year for the eighth time.

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