COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS --- Lady Bulldog senior Marie-Therese Obst won the javelin crown as one of three Georgia scorers during day one of the Southeastern Conference Outdoor Championships in College Station, Texas, on Thursday.
The Georgia women scored 10 points on the first day with two of 21 events scored to put themselves in fourth while Alabama (19) has taken the early lead. The Bulldog men tallied five points for eighth place and Arkansas (22) is currently atop the leaderboard.
Obst, a native of Oslo, Norway, sent her opening attempt in the women’s javelin 187 feet, 11 inches to capture Georgia’s 13th SEC title in the event and first since 2012.
“I already knew in the warm-up that today was about who can manage the wind the best,” said Obst. “It was a pretty harsh headwind so I’m just glad I managed it somehow and got away with a win. That was the main goal and now it’s back to the lab and hope to throw further at Prelims and Nationals.”
Coming into the meet as the national leader in the decathlon, junior Karel Tilga will be competing in the javelin, 110-meter hurdles and discus at SECs. On Thursday, Tilga sent his second attempt 217-1 to finish sixth in the javelin and scored three points for the Bulldogs.
Junior Alencar Pereira worked up to a career best on Thursday during his first year with Georgia to move from eighth to seventh on his final toss in the hammer throw.
Three Bulldogs also qualified for running finals on Thursday evening. Senior Amber Tanner and junior Anna Marian Block (800m) and sophomore Matthew Boling (200m) advanced to the final round in their events.
In the multi-events, redshirt sophomore Kyle Garland, who is working to complete his first collegiate decathlon after redshirting in 2019 and not competing in 2020, has taken a commanding lead in the decathlon. Following five events, he has scored 4,377 points to put him at least 400 points in front of the other 14 competitors. One of those competitors, teammate Ziggy Zoller, was sixth at the 2019 SEC Outdoor Championships and is positioned in that spot again with 3,757 points.
Sophomore Anna Hall closed her final two events of the heptathlon with personal records to score a day one career-best tally (3,724) and sit in second place overall. Graduate transfer Asya Reynolds, who has done only a single heptathlon with the Lady Bulldogs but seven with Michigan State, had four UGA career bests and sits in sixth overall (3,531), positioning herself only 13 points behind fifth place.
When Do The Bulldogs Start Day 2: Garland and Zoller are scheduled to start day two in the decathlon 110m hurdles at 2:45 p.m. ET and the discus, pole vault, javelin and 1500m will follow. Hall and Reynolds will begin to knock out the final three events of the heptathlon (long jump, javelin, 800m) at 3:35 p.m.
Sophomore Mia Anderson and freshman Charlotte Williams begins the women’s hammer throw at 3 p.m. to start the open events on Saturday. Georgia’s first event on the track during day two will be Tilga running the open 110m hurdle prelims at 7 p.m.