CCU women’s cross country team already has eyes on Sun Belt crown

Jeff Jacobs can’t wait to see his full stable of runners.

His women’s team sporting a top 7 he believes to be formidable, the Coastal Carolina cross country coach will get his first glimpse of his top 3 runners at the CCU Invitational on Friday in Conway.

In their first meet of the season, the Chants placed fourth in the Elon Open.

However, top runners Kyla van Graan, Aynslee van Graan, Rachel Byrd – who finished third, fifth and 12th, respectively, in the Big South Championship meet last season – and Boise State transfer Annie Bothma, expected to be the Chants’ No. 3 behind the van Graan sisters, did not participate in the race.

All are scheduled to race Friday.

“Definitely for the women to put the whole team together I think will be exciting to see kind of where we’re at at this point in the season,” Jacobs said.

The Coastal women were voted second in their debut in the Sun Belt preseason poll. The Chants garnered 132 points and four first-place votes, three points and one first-place tally behind South Alabama.

“I guess coaches think we’ll be competitive for the title in our first year, which is our goal,” Jacobs said. “Our top 7 projects to be pretty strong on the women’s side.”

Jacobs is hoping Bothma – like the van Graans, a South African – can bolster Coastal’s top 3, which last year included the now-graduated Letitia Saayman, the 2015 Big South individual champion.

“She has a lot of talent,” said Jacobs, whose women placed second in the Big South Championship meet a year ago. “She could be a strong runner at the NCAA national level.”

With the top 3 skipping the first race, Alyssa LeClaire led the way with a eighth-place finish, followed by Alesia Muklebust (15th) and Kayla Tracy (25th) and Taylor Creagh (26th).

“It’s a good returning group and a couple good newcomers as well,” Jacobs said.

Coastal was also picked 14th in the Southeast regional rankings.

“I think we could do a good bit better than that as well by the end of year,” Jacobs said. “It’s still kind of early for some of these polls to really reflect real results. I’m excited for Friday to see the women’s team really unveiled, the full team.”

The Coastal Carolina men were voted eighth out of 10 teams in the Sun Belt poll. Jacobs hopes the additions of newcomers Hutson Baumann, a transfer from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and Andrew Southard, a freshman from Canada, will help prove the poll incorrect.

“I think we can definitely do better than that,” Jacobs said. “I think that’s probably looking at our past results and not kind of recognizing what these two new guys are going to contribute right away. So we’ve got to prove ourself on the men’s side with where we finished in the conference in the Big South last year. But I’m sure they’re up to the task there and I’m pretty sure we can finish higher there.”

Baumann (eighth), Josh Small (12th, Southard (16th) and Riaz Tyler (24th) led the Chants to a fourth-place finish in the Elon Open.

“Those top four look pretty strong,” Jacobs said. “We’ll be definitely be way improved in the first four positions on the men’s side as well.”

Friday’s meet will feature six additional college teams as The Citadel, Coker, Concord (W.Va.), South Carolina State, St. Andrews (N.C.) and UNC-Wilmington will take part. There will be high school races (girls at 4:30 p.m.; boys at 5:15) before the college races (6 p.m. for the women; 6:30 for the men).

“Friday will be a good test for everybody,” Jacobs said.

This story was originally published September 7, 2016 at 5:00 AM with the headline "CCU women’s cross country team already has eyes on Sun Belt crown."