Weekend Look Back: Demps Dazzles in 100m, King Wins Vault Crown, Men's Golf Delivers SEC Title
Monday, April 18, 2011 | General
The 200th SEC title in school history courtesy of the men's golf team, an SEC title from Andres Echavarria, a national championship performance in the vault by Marissa King, an outright SEC title for the women's tennis team and a sub-10-second 100 from Jeff Demps highlighted an amazing weekend in the Gator Nation.
Golf
The men's golf team captured its first SEC title since 2003 and in the process, the 200th SEC title in school history. The Gators won the team title by five strokes, improving its score each day, opening with a 285, following by a 282 and then a 281 to close out competition. Andres Echavarria won the individual event in a playoff while Phillip Choi tied for third and Bank Vongvanij placed fifth overall.
The women's team finished ninth at the SEC women's golf championship. Three Gators placed in the top 25 led by Mia Piccio who finished in a tie for 12th place. Evan Jensen finished tied for 17th and Isabelle Lendl tied for 24th.
Gymnastics
The gymnastics team missed a trip to the Super Six by the narrowest of margins, finishing fourth in the evening session of the NCAA Gymnastics Championships in Cleveland Friday night. The Gators were rock solid on vault, bars and floor, but weren't able to overcome a costly start on beam.
On Sunday sophomore Marissa King became just the fourth individual in school history to win an NCAA title in an individual event, and the first since 1998, when she won the vault with a score of 9.875. Senior Maranda Smith closed out her Gator career with a runner-up finish in the floor exercise with a score of 9.90.
Tennis
The top-ranked women's tennis squad blanked South Carolina, 7-0, to secure the outright SEC title on Saturday afternoon. Florida improved to 22-1 overall, finished 11-0 in SEC play and won the SEC crown for the seventh time in head coach Roland Thornqvist's 10 years at the helm.
The Gators earned the No. 1 seed in the SEC Tournament which begins Thursday in Knoxville.
The men's team closed out the regular season with a 4-0 win at South Carolina on Saturday afternoon. The Gators will now host the SEC men's tournament from Thursday through Sunday at Linder Stadium and earned the No. 5 seed, hosting Arkansas on Thursday at 3 p.m.
Track
Florida's Jeff Demps, Dumisani Hlaselo, Cory McGee, Sean Obinwa, and Terrell Wilks, each turned in top-five national times in their respective events Saturday to top an impressive list of standout performances by the Gators at the 2011 Tom Jones Memorial Classic at James G. Pressly Stadium at Percy Beard Track.
Demps ran a 9.96w in the 100m, Wilks a 20.51 in the 200m, Hiasello won the 1,500m in a time of 3:40.66, McGee ran a time of 4:16.39 in the women's 1,500m and Obinawa won the men's 800m in a time of 1:47.73. Over the course of the day the Gators won 10 total events.
Baseball
The baseball team took its weekend series with Georgia, taking two out of three contests. Florida opened the weekend with a 5-4 victory on Friday night as head coach Kevin O'Sullivan picked up win No. 150 on his career. Hudson Randall picked up the win to improve to 6-1 on the year.
The Gators fell on Saturday, 7-2, as a six-run eighth inning for Georgia broke open what had been a 1-1 game. Florida rebounded on Saturday to win the tie-breaker in the series, 14-7, behind two home runs and six RBIs from Preston Tucker.
Florida improved to 28-9 on the year and 11-4 in SEC play. The Gators cap a stretch of eight straight away from home on Wednesday night at UCF before returning home for a weekend series with Alabama starting Friday night.
Softball
The Gator softball team swept Auburn, taking a double-header on Saturday (14-4 and 8-2) after Friday night's game was rained out. The Gators used a power surge of seven home runs in the two games, including three from freshman Cheyenne Coyle and two from senior Kelsey Bruder.
The Gators continued to take advantage of the long ball on Sunday, hitting a school single-game record eight home runs in a 13-4 win at Auburn to complete the series sweep. Senior Aja Paculba and sophomore Brittany Schutte had two apiece.
With the win Florida improved to 37-7 and 13-7 in SEC play (six straight SEC wins). The Gators return home to face UCF on Wednesday night, then face No. 3 Alabama in a key home series Friday through Sunday.
Lacrosse
Fresh off a thrilling victory over No. 2 Northwestern on Thursday night, the Gator lacrosse team took to the road and won a thriller on Sunday at No. 17 Vanderbilt, 8-7. Sophomore Brittany Dashiell scored the game-winner with 30 seconds remaining to break a 7-7 tie. Sophomore attacker Ashley Bruns led the Gators with five points on the afternoon, three goals and two assists.
With the win the Gators capped a perfect season in the ALC with a 5-0 record, while improving to 14-1 on the year. The Gators are off for two weeks before traveling to Cornell on May 1.
