CORAL GABLES, Fla. — Georgia Tech track and field finished the 2018 ACC Outdoor Championships in style on Saturday evening, taking home two gold medals and seven total all-ACC honors overall on the final day.
First to take gold was Jeanine Williams in the 100m hurdles. The junior from Kingston, Jamaica turned in a wind-aided time of 12.83 to finish first while Kenya Collins also scored with an eighth-place time of 13.60. The performance would be a school record if not for the wind; however, the NCAA allows qualifying marks with up to 4.0 wind, giving her the No. 4 time in the East Region and No. 8 time in the country entering regionals.
Williams becomes the seventh student-athlete in ACC history to win both the 60m hurdles and 100m hurdles in the same year. Coincidentally, she is also the second Yellow Jacket in league history to accomplish the feat, joining Andria King, who won both consecutively in 1999.
Taking Tech’s second gold on the day would be Avery Bartlett, who turned in a thrilling come-from-behind victory over the final 100 meters to finish the 800m race with a time of 1:48.05. Andres Littig shaved some time off his season-best performance, earning second-team all-ACC with a sixth-place mark of 1:49.30.
Joining Williams, Bartlett, Littig and Hailey Gollnick — from yesterday’s 3000m steeple — in the all-ACC honors group next was Preston Smith, who lept to an impressive PR of 15.67 meters in the triple jump, adding 0.08 meters to his distance to rank sixth overall on the season in the ACC.
Also garnering second-team all-ACC honors was Benjamin Jean and Daniel Pietsch, who finished neck-and-neck with each other at fourth and sixth, respectively, in the 400m. Jean turned in a time of 46.91 while Pietsch ran a 46.93. Also finishing in the top 10 was Ty Brooks, who recorded a seventh-place time of 47.42.
In Saturday’s relay races, the men’s 4x400m group of Brooks, Bartlett, Jean and Pietsch led with a fourth-place time of 3:09.08 — a season-best. Meanwhile, the women’s 4x100m team of Williams, Brianna Hayden, Collins and Raven Stewart finished sixth with a time of 44.93.
The final women’s relay performance came from the 4x400m team as Angelica Henderson, Shannon Innis, Marinice Bauman and Domonique Hall turned in a time of 3:41.11 for eighth place.
The longest distance event of the night came on the 5000m. Nahom Solomon led Georgia Tech to a ninth-place finish with a time of 14:15.02 in the men’s event while Nicole Fegans paced the Jackets in the women’s heat, running a 17:00.52.
Then the men’s 4x100m team kicked to a top-10 finish, as Tyson Spears, Wesley Watkins, Jr., Maurice Simpson and Andreas Ward turned in a 10th-place time of 41.66.
Rounding out the night with a fine PR was Dasia Smith in the triple jump. Her leap of 11.50m increased her career-best by an impressive 0.27 meters, while also pushing her within the top 20 of the ACC overall this season.
The Yellow Jackets will now rest and train before gathering their NCAA qualifiers up for NCAA Outdoor East Preliminaries in Tampa, Fla. The three-day meet is scheduled to run May 24-26.
