Coastal Carolina roundup (Sept. 26)

The Coastal Carolina women’s cross country team flexed its muscle Saturday.

The Chants finished seventh in the 19-team Panorama Farms Invitational, placing higher than three teams ranked higher than them in the Southeast region rankings.

Led by Letitia Saayman (17:02), who finished third individually in the 123-runner, 5K race, Coastal outpaced Eastern Kentucky (fifth in the rankings), Furman (sixth) and Wake Forest (ninth).

“It’s a big turning point for us,” CCU coach Jeff Jacobs said. “We felt like we had a top-10 team in the region. We finally got to race against some of the better ones in our region. We showed we were very competitive with them. We’re going to gain a lot of confidence from it.”

Coastal’s Kyla van Graan placed 18th (17:44), Aynslee van Graan was 41st (18:21), Rachel Byrd finished 66th (19:00), Alesia Mucklebust placed 80th (19:28), Regina Peattie finished 109th (20:43) and Taylor Creagh was 116th (21:06).

Saayman finished nearly 13 seconds back of Virginia’s Iona Lake, who won the race.

“That was an outstanding race for her,” Jacobs said.

As a team, the Chants finished ahead of key Big South rivals Liberty and High Point.

“That bodes well for us,” Jacobs said. “We matched up well against them today.”

On the men’s side, Coastal Carolina was unable to crack the top 15.

Josh Small led the way for the Chants, finishing 95th (26:32). Riaz Taylro placed 111th (27:30), Zach Hensel was 115th (28:26), Jarrett Ashby placed 121st (29:33) and Charles Bascom placed 123rd (30:56).

Virginia won both the men’s and women’s team titles.

Women’s soccer

Coastal Carolina 2, Longwood 1 (OT): Amber Adams scored the game-winner in the sixth minute of overtime to lift the Chants to a win.

After Olivia Colella put the Lancers up 1-0 in the 46th minute, Jenna Surdick scored in the 59th to tie it up.

Volleyball

Coastal Carolina 3, (at) Presbyterian 0: Leah Hardeman had 13 kills and Lian Bernett added 10 as the Chants beat the Blue Hose in three games (25-12, 25-16, 25-15).

This story was originally published September 26, 2015 at 10:32 PM with the headline "Coastal Carolina roundup (Sept. 26)."