The North Georgia Nighthawks (or UNG Nighthawks) are the athletic teams that represent the

University of North Georgia The University of North Georgia (UNG) is a public senior military college with multiple campuses in Georgia. It is part of the University System of Georgia. The university was established on January 8, 2013 by a merger of North Georgia College ...

(formed after the merger of

North Georgia College & State University The University of North Georgia (UNG) is a public senior military college with multiple campuses in Georgia. It is part of the University System of Georgia. The university was established on January 8, 2013 by a merger of North Georgia College ...

(NGCSU) and

Gainesville State College Gainesville State College was a state college of the University System of Georgia serving northeast Georgia. The Gainesville State College Gainesville Campus, located northeast of Atlanta and southwest of downtown Gainesville in Oakwood, was ...

in 2013), located in

Dahlonega, Georgia The city of Dahlonega () is the county seat of Lumpkin County, Georgia, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 5,242, and in 2018 the population was estimated to be 6,884. Dahlonega is located at the north end of ...

, in intercollegiate sports as a member of the Division II level of the

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

(NCAA), primarily competing in the

Peach Belt Conference The Peach Belt Conference (PBC) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division II level. The 11 member institutions are located in the South Atlantic states of South Carolina ...

(PBC) since the 2005–06 academic year; while its rifle team competes in the

Southern Conference The Southern Conference (SoCon) is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I. Southern Conference football teams compete in the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly ...

(SoCon) in the

NCAA Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of College athletics, intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major ...

ranks. The Nighthawks previously competed in the

Southern States Athletic Conference The Southern States Athletic Conference (SSAC) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). The 11 member universities that compete in 19 sports are located in Louisiana, Mississi ...

(SSAC; formerly known as Georgia–Alabama–Carolina Conference (GACC) until after the 2003–04 school year) of the

National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) established in 1940, is a college athletics association for colleges and universities in North America. Most colleges and universities in the NAIA offer athletic scholarships to its stu ...

(NAIA) from 1999–2000 to 2004–05. All 13 intercollegiate programs are hosted on the university's Dahlonega campus.

Overview

The merged school inherited the athletic legacy of NGCSU, which competed under the nickname "Saints" with a mascot of a Saint Bernard. Following the merger, 2013, the school's nickname was changed to the "

Nighthawk The nighthawk is a nocturnal bird of the subfamily Chordeilinae, within the nightjar family, Caprimulgidae, native to the western hemisphere. The term "nighthawk", first recorded in the King James Bible of 1611, was originally a local name i ...

s," to help unify the merging schools. Before joining the NCAA and the Peach Belt Conference, North Georgia competed in the

(NAIA) from 1970 to 2005.

Varsity teams

UNG competes in 13 intercollegiate varsity sports: Men's sports include baseball, basketball, golf, soccer and tennis; while women's sports include basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, softball, tennis and track & field; and mixed sports include rifle.

Baseball

UNG's baseball facility was constructed in 2008 for the former North Georgia College and State University. In 2010, it was dedicated to former NGC alumnus and baseball player Bob Stein, who donated much of the funds used in the construction of the field. 11The UNG baseball team is a member of the Peach Belt Conference. Coach Tom Cantrell is in his 20th season at the helm of the Nighthawks baseball program, having coached the team since it was relaunched in 2000. Cantrell is assisted by Cody Clickner and Nick Palmer.

Softball

The University of North Georgia softball team was founded in 1997. It is the only program at North Georgia to have won a National Championship in either the NAIA or the NCAA, winning the 2015 NCAA Division II Softball Championship in Oklahoma City. Coach Ricky Sanders launched the

softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

program, coaching for four seasons until 2000, which was also the year Sanders and the team won the title of Champions of the NAIA Regional Tournament. The softball team has competed as a member of the

since 2006 in NCAA Division II. Their other accomplishments include nine NCAA Tournament appearances, seven NCAA Super Regional appearances, and four NCAA Division II Championship appearances, including the school's first-ever National Championship in 2015. UNG has won six Peach Belt Conference titles in the past eight years, with back-to-back-to-back runs from 2009 to 2011 and 2014 to 2016. Mike Davenport has been the head coach of the program since 2001, with a winning percentage over .750 in that time. In the summer of 2015, after leading UNG to its first national championship, Davenport served as head coach of the

National Pro Fastpitch National Pro Fastpitch (NPF), formerly the Women's Pro Softball League (WPSL), was a professional women's softball league in the United States. The teams battled for the Cowles Cup. The WPSL was founded in 1997 and folded in 2001; the NPF revive ...

league's

USSSA Florida Pride The USSSA Pride are a professional softball team based in Viera, Florida and a member of the WPF - Women's Professional Fastpitch League, U.S. Founded in 2009. They previously played in National Pro Fastpitch (NPF) from 2009 to 2019. They play th ...

, leading the Pride to the regular season NPF title and a runner-up finish in the Cowles Cup. He served as the last head coach of legendary pitcher

Cat Osterman Catherine Leigh Osterman (born April 16, 1983) is a retired American softball player. Osterman pitched on the United States women's national softball team that won the gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics and silver medal at the 2008 and 2020 Su ...

, who retired at the end of the 2015 season. Haines & Carolyn Hill Stadium, also known as "The Hill," was constructed during the fall of 2008 on UNG's Dahlonega campus. In 2014, Hill Stadium received a major upgrade with the installation of FieldTurf artificial playing surface in both the infield and outfield, allowing the team to practice regardless of the North Georgia climate which can feature heavy rains in the spring and occasional snow from late fall through early spring.

Men's basketball

In 1971, the men's basketball team was established. Bill Ensley was the first person to coach this team. Since 2006, the team has competed in the

as an NCAA Division II member. Prior to being an NCAA Division II member, the team competed as an NAIA member in the

. Georgia, Alabama, and the Carolinas competed in this conference.

Women's basketball

The University of North Georgia's women's basketball team (also known as the Nighthawks), created in 1971, was first coached by Linda Caruthers. The team competed as a NAIA member until 2005. It is currently in its 44th season competing in the

as an

NCAA Division II NCAA Division II (D-II) is an intermediate-level division of competition in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). It offers an alternative to both the larger and better-funded Division I and to the scholarship-free environmen ...

member. The current coach, Buffie Berson, has been coaching the Women's Basketball team for the 22 seasons since 1994. The Nighthawks claimed the title of the Peach Belt Conference Regular Season Champions in 2006.

Women's cross country

The University of North Georgia's women's cross country team has been competing for the college since 1996. Tom Williams, Amanda Harris, Jason Gibson, Chris Busby, and Gary Stiner founded and lead the team throughout this season, and the program has been active up until 2009. In 2010 and 2011, the women's cross country team did not compete, but it was reinstated for intercollegiate competition in 2012. Until the year 2006, North Georgia was an NAIA member of the

, otherwise known as the Georgia Alabama Carolina Conference. During the seasons of 2005–2007, the women's cross country team transitioned to the

. Since then, they have competed at the

, and they nationally appeared in the NCAA Division II in 2014.

Men's and women's tennis teams

Both the UNG men's and women's

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

teams are coached by Kent Norsworthy. He has been coaching both teams for eleven seasons (this is his 12th season) at

UNG Ung or UNG may refer to: People * Woong, a Korean given name also spelled Ung * Ung (surname), a Cambodian and Norwegian surname * Ung Thị (full name Nguyễn Phúc Ung Thị; 1913–2001), Vietnamese-born American businessman * Franz Unger ( ...

. In the end of the 2012 season the men's tennis team was ranked number 26th nationally in the

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

Division Tournament II. In the 2016 season Norsworthy led both the women's and men's programs to their best seasons in modern history.

Rifle

The UNG mixed rifle team is coached by head coach Tori Kostecki. The rifle team, the only UNG team that does not compete in the Peach Belt (due to the conference not sponsoring rifle), was previously a member of the Southeast Air Rifle Conference but became an associate member of the Division I

in 2016–17. The team participated in the April 2014

USA Shooting USA Shooting (USAS), a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation, was chartered by the United States Olympic Committee as the National Governing Body (NGB) for the sport of shooting in April 1995. The NRA had served as the NGB for one hundred years prio ...

Junior Olympic National Championship. The school's rifle facility is the Col. Raymond C. Hamilton Rifle Range and is part of the Military Leadership Center on the North Georgia Dahlonega campus.

References

External links

* {{College sports in Georgia