The Red and Black

Issue date: 6/15/09 Section: Sports

HILL [Click to enlarge]

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Although several states away from his home on his birthday, Georgia throws coach Don Babbitt got one of the best presents possible at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Fayetteville, Ark., on Friday.

The Bulldog throwers scored 13 points to pace Georgia, including a second straight NCAA javelin title from junior Chris Hill with a school-record performance. In addition, senior Justin Gaymon finished third in the 400-meter hurdle finals to score six more points for the Bulldogs.

"The performances today were a pretty nice birthday present," said Babbitt, whose men's team had one more All-American in 2009 than it did in 2008. "All of our crew executed well today in a high-pressure situation so you can't ask for much more than that. Chris came into the finals firing and could have won the meet on his very first throw. It's a shame that he missed the meet record by just six centimeters, but he took command immediately and finished extremely strong which is what the great ones do."

In the final meet of his junior year, Hill registered his second straight NCAA title in the javelin in dominating fashion. The Sulphur, La., native opened with a throw of 255 feet, 1 inch, which would have won the competition by itself, before launching a top toss of 268-4 on his fifth attempt. This topped his own school record in the event by three inches. Hill, who came into the meet with the country's third-longest throw, finished the meet only one inch shy of beating second-place Corey White, of USC, by exactly 20 feet.

At last year's NCAAs, Hill recorded a top mark of 257-3 to finish ahead of White (255-2) in the final round. Hill jumpstarted this year's postseason by winning his first career SEC crown in the javelin and following that up with a facility and meet record performance to win his second straight NCAA East Region title.

He becomes the first member of the Georgia men's team to win back-to-back NCAA crowns since Andras Haklits captured a pair of hammer championships in 2001-02. While Jenny Dahlgren is the last Georgia team member to repeat as a national champion (hammer throw - 2006-07), there have only been four team members in program history to win at least two consecutive NCAA outdoor titles. This is the 13th national championship (11th outdoor) in program history for the men.

Starting from lane four, Gaymon closed the gap as he cleared the final two hurdles and managed a third-place finish during the third 400 hurdle finals of his career. His time of 49.02 was the second-fastest finish of his season after he crossed the finish line in 48.86 to take second at the SEC meet earlier this year. Washington State sophomore Jeshua Anderson (48.47) defended his title in the event while South Carolina sophomore Johnny Dutch (48.62) was the runner-up.

Gaymon also had a third-place finish in 2007 before earning All-American honors in the event in 2008, despite being disqualified in the finals last year. He completes his career as a six-time All-American and a three-time SEC champion and holds the school record in the 400 hurdles after clocking a 48.46 at the Olympic Trials over the summer.

After the Bulldogs had a trio of hammer throwers - Nate Rolfe, John Freeman and Branislav Danis - make the finals for the first time in school history, two of those competitors left with All-America certificates.

Rolfe, who improved on each of his last three throws before fouling twice to end the competition, had a top mark of 214-7 to take seventh and have the second-best finish from the SEC. This was the second All-America certificate of Rolfe's career at UGA after taking eighth in the hammer in 2007.

Freeman waited until his final effort to launch a throw measuring 213-3 and finished eighth place. This is the first All-American honor for Freeman, who had the second-longest throw of his career in the finals, after taking 17th in the qualifying round of last year's meet. Freeman came into the meet ranked 22nd on the NCAA performance list.

Georgia's third competitor in the hammer was Branislav Danis. The 2006 and 2007 NJCAA national champion in the event, Danis was one of three competitors out of 12 to not make the second round of the finals after tallying a top mark of 207-3 to take 11th place.

This marks the first time since 2003 (Lucais MacKay, Panagiotis Mavraganis) that Georgia has had more than one All-American in the hammer at one NCAA meet.

- Georgia Sports Communications

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