June 2001: Vol. 80, No. 3June 2001: Vol. 80, No. 3 |
 Top: Breaststroker Ashley Roby helped the swimmers three-peat. Middle: A resurgent Reilley Rankin bounced back from a severe back injury to pace the golfers' NCAA title. Bottom: Matias Boeker became only the third college tennis player in history to win team, singles, and doubles titles. |
The drum roll began in March when Jack Bauerle's swimming and diving team made school history by winning its third consecutive NCAA title by the narrowest margin in history—389 to 387.5—over Stanford in Long Island, N.Y.
It continued in May when Georgia's top-ranked men's tennis team—surprised not to find a California challenger blocking its path —beat Tennessee 4-1 to win its second NCAA title in three years in Athens.
Two days later, in Howey-in-the-Hills, Fla., women golfers rallied from four strokes down to beat Duke for the national title.
Georgia has now won nine NCAA championships—swimming (3), men's tennis (2), women's tennis, gymnastics, men's and women's golf—since 1999, after totaling just 10 all-time prior to '99.
Swim title a true team effort
"We went at this one a little differently," says Bauerle, with the sheepish smile of a coach whose team won only one event (800-yard freestyle) during the three-day NCAA meet, but came away with the national title, thanks to the number of Georgia swimmers who qualified for finals and the strong performances they put forth. "We won a lot of races on the last day of the '99 meet here in Athens, but this year the key was a lot of second- and third-place finishes."
The outcome of the meet not only went down to the last event—the 400-yard free relay—but to the order of finish between Georgia and Stanford. The Lady Dogs finished second and when Stanford could do no better than fourth, the Lady Dogs became the first Georgia team to three-peat.
Golfers rely on Rankin
The women's golf title looked like it might be accomplished with relative ease when a nine-shot swing put Georgia five strokes ahead of Duke with just nine holes to play on the final day. But when Summer Sirmons, Reilley Rankin, Angela Jerman, and Laura Henderson all bogeyed the 16th hole, the Lady Dogs found themselves in second place with just two holes to play.
Fortunately, Georgia was equal to the challenge, as Sirmons, Rankin, and Jerman all drained birdie putts at No. 17. For Rankin, who was named SEC Player of the Year as a sophomore but had to sit out a year to recover from a career-threatening injury (see p. 1), the team title was especially gratifying. Plodding along at 3-over after nine holes on the final day, the redshirt junior from Hilton Head, S.C., made four birdies on the back side to lead Georgia to victory.
Boeker pulls off rare triple
The question wasn't whether Matias Boeker was a good enough tennis player to win the men's singles title. The hard-hitting sophomore from Buenos Aries, by way of Ft. Lauderdale, came into the NCAA tournament on a hot streak and was seeded third.
The question was, could the mainstay of Georgia's exhausting team championship, regroup physically and emotionally for the single and doubles competition?
Second-seed Alex Kim was so dehydrated from the first round of team play that he couldn't play in the Cardinal's quarter-final loss to Tennessee, and he bowed out in the first round of the singles competition.
But Boeker was a rock from start to finish. He went 3-0 in the team championship, didn't lose a set in winning the singles, and then teamed with doubles partner Travis Parrott—one of the heroes of Georgia's 4-3 quarter-final win over Duke in the team championship—to win the NCAA doubles title as well.
Only two other players—Stanford's Bob Bryan ('98) and Alex O'Brien ('92)—withstood the pressure-cooker atmosphere of winning the NCAA team title and gone on to add the singles and doubles crowns.
"Bryan, O'Brien, and now Boeker," he said afterward, savoring the sound of it. "I never thought I could pull it off. I can't believe I feel this good physically. It's probably just all this adrenaline."
| NATIONAL TEAM CHAMPIONS (19 titles) | ||
| Football | |
1942, '80 |
| Baseball | |
1990 |
| Men's golf | |
1999 |
| Women's golf | |
2001 |
| Gymnastics | |
1987, '89, '93, '98-'99 |
| Women's swim/diving | |
1999-2001 |
| Men's tennis | |
1985, '87, '99, 2001 |
| Women's tennis | |
1994, 2000 |