A year of Champions for Georgia 2024-2025

[Top Row Dawg]

One of the greatest years in Georgia Athletics history wrapped up last Saturday in Eugene, Ore., where the top-ranked women's track and field team blew away the pack to win the NCAA Outdoor Championships. It was the fourth national championship by a Bulldog team since February, tying the school record set in 1999.



Georgia's women's tennis team, the NCAA runner-up last spring, swept the two national championships this year, winning the ITA National Indoor Championships in February and the NCAA Championships in May. Women's tennis has now won eight national titles, and the equestrian program also captured its eighth this spring, marching through the bracket as the No. 7 seed to win the NCEA national championship in Ocala, Fla.

Bulldog teams have won seven national championships — football (2), women's tennis (2), equestrian (2) and women's track — since Josh Brooks took over as Director of Athletics in 2021.

The Georgia women (and men) had finished second at the NCAA Indoors in March. 

Georgia won individual titles in the 400 meters (Aaliyah Butler), hammer throw (Stephanie Ratcliffe, who also won the NCAA title in 2023 while at Harvard), high jump (Elena Kulichenko, a three-time NCAA champion) and captured the meet's final race, the 4x400 relay (Michelle Smith, Dejanea Oakley, Sydney Harris and Butler).

Earlier in the year, at the NCAA Indoor Championships, Will Floyd won the 400 meters and was part of the quartet, along with Shemar Chambers, Xai Ricks and Ervin Pearson, who won the NCAA title in the 4x400 relay. 

Track and field's men and women won numerous other SEC events and honors during the season, including Indoor and Outdoor long jump titles by Jayden Keys, who was named the SEC Outdoor Freshman Field Athlete of the Year.

Georgia's individual successes weren't confined to the track. In November, women's tennis senior Dasha Vidmanova won the NCAA singles championship in Waco, Texas. Vidmanova and partner Aysegul Mert had won the NCAA doubles title the previous spring, and with the women's team's NCAA crown this May, Vidmanova became just the third player in collegiate women's tennis history to win all three NCAA titles in her career.

In the pool, Bulldog redshirt senior Luca Urlando, a 2024 Olympian, won the NCAA title in the men's 200-yard butterfly. On the women's side, Abby McCulloh, the 2024 NCAA champion in the 1,650 freestyle and a seven-time All-American during her great career, was named the SEC H. Boyd McWhorter Women's Scholar-Athlete of the Year.

Vidmanova was named the ITA National Player of the Year, ITA Senior Player of the Year, SEC Player of the Year, and she was the Honda Award winner for tennis. Georgia women's tennis coach Drake Bernstein was named both the SEC Coach of the Year and the ITA National Coach of the Year.

Georgia's equestrian team lost to Texas A&M in the semifinals of the SEC Championships in Mill Spring, N.C., but headed to the NCEA Championships confident that its best was still to come, head coach Meghan Boenig said after the season.

"Even after that loss, I think all of us just took a breath and were like, Bring it," said Boenig, who was named the SEC Coach of the Year and NCEA Coach of the Year. Graduate Sophia Pilla was named the SEC Flat Rider of the Year and NCEA Flat Rider of the Year.

At the NCEA Championships, the seventh-seeded Bulldogs knocked off second-seeded Auburn, sixth-seeded A&M and top-seeded SMU to win the title.

Georgia's athletic year got off to a strong start with the football team winning the SEC championship, beating Texas, 22-19, in overtime. Then came a very successful spring in a variety of sports that included the four team national championships and nine individual NCAA champions, the most since 2017. Georgia's 52 all-time national championships are tied for second in the SEC.

[ugafan49]

glory Glory to ole Georgia.. Thanks TRD.