Chants’ Saayman wins Big South cross country title

Coastal Carolina cross country coach Jeff Jacobs said senior Letitia Saayman was especially motivated entering the Big South championships Saturday after coming up just short in the conference meet last year.

And indeed, she would make sure nobody could spoil her race this time.

Saayman set personal and program women’s 5K records and bested the course record by about 17 seconds, winning the Big South championship with a time of 16 minutes, 49.44 seconds at the Roger Milliken Center in Spartanburg.

“Letitia’s race was incredible. She took control of the race immediately and ran unchallenged, just ran away from the field,” Jacobs said.

Overall, the Coastal Carolina women placed second, totaling 51 points, while High Point prevailed with a score of 47.

The Chants’ were strong at the top end as junior Kyla van Graan placed third (17:26.72) and sophomore Aynslee van Graan was fifth (17:43.74), but they didn’t have the depth of their competitiors.

“Our top four ran so well,” Jacobs said. “We went one-three-five and Rachel Byrd was 12th, which was a phenomenal improvement from last year. We were in great shape through four runners, but as we knew these other teams were stronger than us at the fifth runner and High Point and Liberty were both able to put seven runners in front of our fifth runner.”

As for Saayman, she had won the Big South championship as a sophomore before placing third last year.

This time nobody could get in her way, though, as she blew past the previous course record of 17:06 and the previous 5K women’s program record of 16:56. She was named the Big South women’s runner of the year.

“When I heard the record of 17:06 I knew that was in jeopardy, but to beat it by 17 seconds and really running unchalleged from the start, it’s just amazing confidence she has, amazing fitness,” Jacobs said. “She’s just running great right now. I’m very happy for her because she’s worked so so hard.”

The Coastal Carolina men’s cross country team placed seventh out of 11 teams while having only five runners start the race. Freshman Josh Small was the Chants’ top finisher in the 8K race in a time of 26:35.58

“We’re just a little undermanned this year, but they did the best they could absolutely,” Jacobs said.

This story was originally published October 31, 2015 at 7:24 PM with the headline "Chants’ Saayman wins Big South cross country title."