Track Looks To 'Three-Peat' At SSAC Championships

The Brenau track and field team looks ahead to the Southern States Athletic Conference Championships in Gulf Shores, Alabama with hopes of winning their third straight conference championship.

After starting the program in 2012, head coach Rick Ludwig never expected to win a conference championship in the program's first year, much less two in a row.

Starting from scratch, Ludwig hoped to build a foundation of balance throughout all the track events and to score points across the board.

"The core of our success is recruiting outstanding student-athletes," said Ludwig. "There is tremendous track and field talent in Georgia and all of our athletes have been fierce competitors since their arrival and hate to lose."

In the program's inaugural season, the team showed promise, finishing in the top half of all of their regular season meets.

At the 2013 SSAC Track and Field Championships, the first-year program used their depth to dominate the meet, winning eleven different events and finishing with a total of 33 top-three finishes. The Golden Tigers amassed 352 points, winning by a staggering 239 point margin over second place finisher William Carey (Miss.) College.

Hoping to repeat as 2014 champions, the Golden Tigers flooded each race with talent to overwhelm the competition once again- this time winning 14 of 21 events and scoring points in every event of the championships for a 211.5 point margin of victory.

Now in the program's third season, Ludwig hopes that the experience of winning the previous championships will help propel his squad to a third consecutive championship.

"We have had more adversity this year than in any of the previous years," Ludwig noted. "We have had numerous njuries thoughout the season and bad weather to contend with, plus the conference competition has gotten better each year."

"However, this is a very positive, very competitive and very mature team that seems to handle adversity well. The team and I talk about how 'wounded tigers' are often the most dangerous tigers and I hope we take that motivation into the conference meet".

The Golden Tigers kick off their quest for the a third conference championships on Friday.