Aug. 6, 2008
ATLANTA – Five Yellow Jackets were named to the USTFCCCA All-Academic Track and Field Teams Tuesday for their academic and athletic achievements during the indoor and outdoor track seasons.
The Georgia Tech women’s team garnered All-Academic Track and Field team honors with a combined grade point average of 3.150.
Junior Alana Clooten, sophomore Tiffany Grant, senior Jenny Sims and freshman Joanna Wright represent the women’s team and junior E.C. Gibbs is the lone representative on the men’s side.
To qualify for the USTFCCCA All-Academic Track and Field Team, the student-athlete must have compiled a cumulative grade point average of 3.25 and have met either the NCAA Division I Indoor automatic or provisional qualifying standard or the NCAA Division I Outdoor regional or national qualifying standard in their respective event.
Sims, who makes the team for the second year in a row, finished the outdoor season with a personal-best time of 4:23.99 in the 1500-meter run at the NCAA East Region Championships for a 10th-place finish. The mid-distance runner from Woodstock, Ga. also registered a team season-best time of 9:43.46 in the 3000-meter run at the Penn Relays. Sims completed the 800-meter run in a season-best time of 2:14.61 at the Yellow Jacket Invitational.
Clooten, a junior biomedical engineer major, tallied a personal-best throw of 184 feet, 9 inches in the hammer throw at the NCAA East Region Championships for a seventh-place finish to earn All-East Region honors. In the indoor season, Clooten finished first place in the weight throw at the Clemson Opener by tossing a season-best mark of 60 feet, 6 3/4 inches.
Grant, a sophomore management major, ran a personal-best time of 24.65 in the 200-meter dash at the ACC Outdoor Championships. She also ran a leg of the NCAA East Region Championships qualifying 4×400-meter relay team that placed fourth at the ACC meet with an outdoor season-best time of 3:41.45.
Wright, a freshman pole vaulter, registered a school-record mark of 12 feet, 9 1/2 inches in the pole vault at the ACC Outdoor Championships to earn All-ACC honors with a second-place finish. She finished in 12th place at the NCAA East Region Championships with a mark of 12 feet.
Gibbs, a junior engineering major, registered an outdoor career-best time of 3:47.03 in the 1500m at the Yellow Jacket Invitational to earn a bid into the NCAA East Region Championship. At the Championship, he finished 23rd in the 1500-meter run with a time of 3:53.22.
To be nominated in the team category, the team must carry a minimum 3.000 team cumulative grade-point average. The Yellow Jacket women went well above and beyond that mark in the classroom by recording the 3.150 mark.
